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UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION 

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PRESENTED BY I 




NOTE. 

This collection of one hundred and sixty tributes results from a desire to 
reprint in book-form the twelve poems enterprisingly got together by the 
proprietors of the Boston Daily Globe. The intention was to print only tlic 
twelve from the Globe ; but so many persons throughout this country and 
Europe had otFered their tributes to the memory of our President, that the 
publisher decided to enlarge the volume, that it might better serve as a fair 
expression of the feelings of the American and kindred peoples at a time of 
wide-spread grief. The little volume now presented does not contain one 
half the number of poetical tributes already in print ; but those it does contain 
are so numerous and so varied, and the authors' homes are so far apart, that 
the publisher hopes the collection will well serve its purpose. 

Notwithstanding considerable effort has been spent in trying to^btain 
the authors' names and addresses, many could not be obtained ; and^dfcieir 
verses have been reprinted without their having an opportunity to revise 
them. Most of the poems, however, have been revised by the authors, 
and, as a result, many diflFer from what they were when first printed. 

Due credit has been given to original sources of poems in every case where 
it was known, or supposed. But as some newspapers clip from other publi- 
cations, without credit, this collection, probably, has- given credit in several 
cases, not to the publications in which the poems first appeared, but to those 
in which they were reprinted. 

At the request of two of the authors, then- poems were omitted; but 
nearly all who returned their proof-sheets have cordially approved and 
gratifyingly encouraged the publication of the collected poems. 



THE 



POETS' TRIBUTES 

v 



TO 



GARFIELD 



A COLLECTION OF MANY MEMORIAL POEMS 



OEitf) Portrait antj Bfograpljg 






BHA^'^ 



(^MAY 1 1882 



CAMBRIDGE, INIASS. 
PUBLISHED BY MOSES KING 

HARVARD SQUARE 

1882 



' CoMMENB me to the friend that comes 

When I am sad and lone, 
And makes the anguish of my heart 

The suifeiing of his own ; 
Who coldly shuns the glittering throng 

At pleasure's gay levee, 
And comes to gild a somhrc hour 

And give his heart to me. 

He hears me count my sorrows o'er ; 

And when the task is done 
He freely gives me all I ask, — 

A sigh for every one. 
He cannot wear a smiling face 

When mine is touched with gloom, 
But like the violet seeks to cheer 

The midnight with perfume. 

Commend me to that generous heart 

Which like the pine on high 
Uplifts the same unvarying hrow 

To every change of sky ; 
Whose friendship does not fade away 

When wintry tempests blow, 
But like the winter's icy crown 

Looks greener through the snow. 

• 

He flies not with the flitting stork, 

That seeks a southern sky, 
But lingers tchere the icoiinded bird 

Hath laid him doioii to die. 
Oh, such a friend ' He is in truth, 

What e'er his lot may be, 
A rainbow on the storm of life. 

An anchor on its sea. 

— Garfield's Favorite Verses. 



•im-. 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Illustrated Title-Paoe I 

Note 

Garfield's Favorite Verses 2 

Index ^ 

Portrait Facing page 7 

Biography "^ 



Garfield's Favorite Hymn 21 



After the Burial 



22 



The Tributes from the Poets 25 

Poems written for the Boston Daily Globe: — 



Oliver Wendell Holmes 



28 



Joaquin Miller ^^ 



H. Bernard Carpenter 



33 



John Boyle O'Reilly ^^ 

Charles Turner Dazey 36 

Julia Ward Howe 



37 



Kate Tannatt Woods. 



38 

Louisa Parsons Hopkins ^^ 

MaHie E. Blake ^1 



MiNOT J. Savage 



42 



Francis A. Nichols . *^ 

Joseph W. Nye ^"^ 

Poems Written for Other Papers : — 

J. W. Turner East Boston Advocate 49 

Caleb D. Brad LEE Soston Advertiser 50 

Eric S. Robertson Mio-York fferald 51 

Charlotte Fiske Bates Boston Transcript 51 

Anonymous London Weekly 52 



J. G. Holland 



52 



Anonymous Frank Leslie's Illust. Xeicspcqyer . 53 

Mrs. L. M. Swan Boston Transcript 54 

George A. Parkhurst Lowell Weekly Journal 56 

D. Gilbert Dexter Cambridge Tribune 56 

Anonymous Boston Commonwealth 57 

Henry C. Dane Boston Transcript 58 

Susie V. Aldrich Boston Home Journal 60 

Anna Ford Piper Boston Transcript 61 



4 INDEX. 

Poems Written for Other Papers: — page 

Emma Pomeroy Eaton Boston TranscrijH 62 

L). p The Capital 62 

n. L. Hastings Boston Journal 65 

Hbzekiah Butterworth Cincinnati Gazette 66 

Dr. Thomas H. Chandler Boston Transcript 69 

Anonymous London Spectator 69 

Anonymous Andrews' American Queen ... 70 

Eva McNair Parsons Louisville Courier- Journal ... 70 

Walt Whitman J. li. Osgood & Co.'s new volume . 71 

Anonymous Puck 72 

James Franklin FiTTS Philadelphia North- American . . 73 

E. 8. Brooks Publishers' Weekly 74 

Arthur N. Willcutt Boston Post 7-1 

John Reade Montreal Gazette 75 

Lilian Whiting Cincinnati Commercial .... 76 

C. H. C Kew- Yo7'k Tribune 77 

W. D. Kelly Boston Pilot 79 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . . . The Independent 81 

Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett 81 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich Harper's Weekly 83 

Anonymous Springfield Republican .... 84 

George Parsons Lathkop New-York Tribune 84 

Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen The Independent 85 

Will Carleton Farm Ballads 86 

Martin Farquhar TUPPER Ntic- York Evening Post .... 87 

Paul H. Hayne 87 

Author OF "John Halifax, Gentleman " 88 

Alfred Nevin, D.D 89 

Prof. David Swing 90 

Prof. G. T. R. Knorr 90 

Charles J. Beattie The Inter-Ocean 91 

Anonymous London Punch 91 

Anonymous London Punch 92 

Prof. Thomas Nelson Haskell 93 

Wake Hubbell ' 94 

Fay Hempstead 94 

Sarah De Wolf Gamwell Si^ringfield Republican .... 95 

Theodore Watts London Aihenceuni 96 

D. A. Casserly New- York ^veiling Mail .... 96 

Barrington Lodge Albany Journal 97 

W. H. Venable 98 

Rev. W. C. Richards Chicago Standard 98 

' Fannie Isabelle Sherrick St. Louis Republican 99 

Emily H. Lbland The Wisconsin 100 

A. A. Hopkins Rochester American Rural Home . 101 



INDEX. 

PoBMs Written fok Other Papers : — page 

Elizabeth Yates Richmond The Inter-Ocean 101 

Ellen H. Russell Troy Times 102 

O. Everts lOS 

Carrie A. Spaulding Sx>ringfield Republican .... 103 

James B. Kenton New- York Home Journal .... 104 

W. E. M 105 

Edward F. Hovet The AUa California lOo 

Louise V. Boyd IncUanapolii Journal 106 

W. E. Pabor Denver Republican 106 

J. E. Fox Chicago Times 107 

Charles J. Bbattie 108 

Minnie B. Notes Springfield Republican 109 

Sarah J. Burke 2^eic-York Tribune 109 

Lewis J. Cist lio 

8. L. Little Providence Sunday Star .... 110 

Martin Macmaster Atlanta Constitution Ill 

L. D. Cole Boston Traveller ....... Ill 

T. W. Parsons, Jr 112 

Mrs. M. E. W. Sherw«od JBosto?i Traveller 112 

Miss Arabella Root The Inter-Ocean 113 

Ben Vail, Jr Washington Republican .... 113 

Anonymous The Pilgrim Press 114 

E. p. Parker Hartford Courant 114 

J. W. Ross 116 

Addison F. Browne Boston Traveller 116 

Florence I. Duncan Philadelphia Press 116 

Col. W. a. Taylor 117 

E. P Denvrr Republican 118 

Charles L. Hildreth 2^eio- York Evening Telegram. . . 119 

Andrew J. Kennedy St. Louis Post-Dispatch .... 120 

E. C. POMEROY ^ Buffalo Commercial Advertiser . . 120 

Charlotte L. Seaver Buffalo Express 122 

H. S. M Philadelphia Evening Bulletin . 123 

Ella Wheeler Chicago Tribune 123 

Anonymous Buffalo Erjyress 124 

B. B Cincinnati Commercial .... 124 

Linn Boyd Porter Cambridge Chronicle 125 

Capt. Sam Whiting 125 

John Banvard J^eto- York Mail 126 

George G. Smith Springfield Rejmblican .... 127 

Anonymous ■ . . . . Hartford Times ....... 127 

Rev. Charles H. Rowe Cambridge Tribune 128 

H. N. Clement 129 

Rev. W. G. Haskell Lewiston Journal 130 

Mrs. Nellie Frew Miller Pittsburgh Gazette 130 



b INDEX. 

Poems Written tor Other Papers:— page 

C. B. BOTSFORD 131 

Edwin Dwiqht Sp7-ingjield Republican .... 132 

R. K. Kernigham Toronto Evening News 133 

Dr. Abraham Coles Newark Daily Advertiser .... 134 

Pbleo McFarlin Niddleborough Gazette 135 

Thojias Mackellar Philadelphia Times 136 

Charles G. Fall. . . . • 137 

C. B. BoTSPORD 138 

C. A. L Philadelpihla Evening Bulletin . 139 

George Francis Dawson 140 

J. W London Graphic 141 

John Savart Washington Gazette 142 

Clara O. Cassell Chicago Tribune 142 

George C. Woollard Cincinnati Gazette 143 

Garland Turell Cleveland Plain Dealer 144 

Capt. Henry E. Mead, O.N. G Christ Church Register 144 

T. G. La Moille Cleveland Plain Dealer .... 145 

John M. Ives Lockport Daily Union 145 

Mrs. E. T. Hottsh Louisville* Commercial 146 

W. J. H. HoGAN Chicago Tribune 147 

Annie D. Darling Boston Transcript 148 

Mrs. Virginia Dimitrt Ruth Neio Orleans Democrat 148 

C. B. ScHLlE Cinciniiati Enquirer 149 

Katherine Hanson Austin Providence Journal 150 

Esther Bernon Carpenter Providence Journal 150 

John Savart Washington Gazette 151 

Rev. Joseph A. Ely 153 

John Savary A volume of poems 154 

John Savart A volume of poems 154 

John Savart A volume of poems 155 

John Savary A volume of poems 155 

John Savart 156 

W. E. H T?ie College Student 157 

Walter Kieffer Phikidelphia Press 158 

Arthur Wilkinson Brick 159 

Sarah K. Bolton The Independe7it 160 

Rev. N. Vansant 161 

Lucy M. Creemer Neiv Haven Register 162 

William T. Hornaday Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. 163 

J. G. De Sttak San Francisco Eveni7ig Call . . . 164 

Charles J. Beattie Chicago Tribune 165 

Harold Boughton Century [Scribner's] Magazine . . 166 

John Owen Boston Transcript 166 

Louis Dyer 167 

A. Bronson Alcott . .■ Springfield Republican .... 168 



,tH'f?.v 





'i 




££^6 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



BIOGRAPHY. 



FROM THE CRADLE. 

A SCRAr OF GENEALOGY." — THE BIRTHPLACE. FROM INFANCY TO 

BOYHOOD. 

James Abram Garfield, the deceased Presideut of the United 
States, was borii iu the little town of Orange, Ohio, Nov. 19. 1831, 
and came from New-England stock. On the paternal side his 
ancestry runs back to Edward Garfield, who in 1635 was recorded 
as one of the proprietors of what is now the town of Watertown, 
Mass. His mother was a descendant of one of those Huguenots 
whom the famous ' ' Edict of Nantes ' ' drove from their beloved 
France to seek religious fi-eedom in the New World. From the 
Garfields he inherited physical and moral strength ; while from his 
mother he received that intellectual vigor and those fine mental 
qualities which have marked in many generations the descendants 
of Maturin Ballon. President Garfield's birthplace was a log- 
cabin, in a wilderness some fifteen miles from that modest home 
which he left in order to take up his residence at the White House. 
He was the youngest of four children, who were left fatherless 
eighteen months after his birth. The widowed mother held her 
homestead farm, and her children together upon it. Thomas, the 
oldest, and the only other boy, was a manly litLle fellow, and did 
what he could to help, while the sisters also made themselves use- 
ful in the household. At the early age of tlu-ee years James 



8 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

began to attend school in a little log-sehooUiouse, the site for 
which had been given by Mrs. Garfield. He was an apt scholar, 
and at the age of eight j^ears was a good reader, speller, and 
writer. Books were his delight ; and among the works with which 
he became thoroughly acquainted during his boyhood were " Jose- 
phus " and Goodrich's "History of the United States." With 
the Bible he was familiar from the first ; for Mrs. Garfield, a 
devoted adherent of the " Campbellite " faith, was fully mindful 
of her children's spiritual interests, and carefully implanted in 
their minds the truths of the Christian religion. He i-emained at 
home until he was sixteen years old, pursued his studies with as 
much vigor as ever, did chores about his mother's place, worked 
for other people as he had opportunity, and proved himself a capa- 
ble and industrious lad. He was about seventeen years old when 
he finally started to enter upon the seafaring life which he had 
long dreamed of. Arriving at Cleveland, to ship before the mast 
upon some of the lake craft, circumstances compelled him to 
abandon the plan ; and he was led to become a driver on a canal 
tow-path. As driver, and then as boatman, he worked on the 
Ohio Canal several months. 



TO YOUTH AND MANHOOD. 

OBTAIKING AN EDUCATION. CAREER AS A TEACHER. THE FIRST 

POLITICAL SPEECH. 

In March, 1849, young Garfield became a student in the Geauga 
Seminary, a Freewill Baptist institution at Chester. At the end 
of the term he worked at haying and carpentering. During his 
first year he paid all his expenses, and had a few dollars left. 
Teaching was his occupation during the interval between his first 
and second year at Chester ; and as a teacher he proved himself 
a master in his school. It was one of those "district" schools, 
not yet things of the past, even in New England, the male pupils 
in which regard the teacher as a natural enemy. Garfield proved 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 9 

himself the physical as well as the intellectual superior of lads 
committed to his charge, and ruled them as well as taught them. 
After his course at Chester, young Garfield, in the fall of 1851, 
entered the Hiram Institute, where the course of instruction was 
cousiderably more advanced than any which he had yet taken. 
Devoting himself to his studies with the vigor which had marked 
his efforts thus far, teaching in the winters and keeping up his own 
work steadily, he found himself in June, 1854, not only ready to 
enter college, but to enter the junior class. He had paid his way, 
and had saved about three hundred and fifty dollars toward defray- 
ing his expenses at college. So he entered the junior class of 
Williams College, in this State, in the fall of 1854, and graduated 
in 185G with the metaphysical honors of the class. He was now 
twenty-five ; and, as the result of his constant self-denying toil of 
nearly twenty years, he had a collegiate education, a few thread- 
bare clothes, a score or more of college text-books, his diploma, 
and a debt of four hundred and fifty dollars. He was at once 
elected teacher of Latin and Greek in the college at Hiram. The 
college was poor and in debt, but Garfield threw all his energies 
into the work of building it up. He soon became distinguished as 
a teacher, and students from far and near flocked to Hiram. In 
1858, while teacher of Latin and Greek at Hiram, Garfield was 
married to Miss Lucretia Rudolph, his former pupil at Hiram and 
schoolmate at Chester Academy ; and she soon proved herself a 
most efficient helpmeet. In 185G young Garfield entered the 
arena of politics, becoming interested in the Kansas-Nebraska 
affairs. He ranged himself in the ranks of the Republican party, 
and became an earnest worker for its principles. His first political 
speech was made in Williamstown, in 185G, just before he left 
college, in behalf of Fremont, the first Republican candidate for 
the presidency. His first vote was cast at the presidential election 
that fall. In 1859 he was elected by a large majority to the Sen- 
ate of Ohio from the counties of Portage and Summit, and, though 
yet scarcely twenty-eight, at once took high rank as a man uuusu- 
aUy well informed on the subjects of legislation, and effective and 
powerful in debate. His most intimate friend in the State Senate 
was J. D. Cox, who afterwards became a major-general, governor 



10 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

of the .State, and Secretary of the Interior. The two young senators 
roomed together, studied together, and helped each other in the 
work of legislation. Garfield pushed his law-studies forward, aud 
early in the winter of 1861 was admitted to the bar of the Supreme 
Court. 



TO THE DEFENCE OF COUNTRY, 

AVITH VOICE AND ARM. HISTORY OP GEN. GARFIELd's 

SOLDIER LIFE. 

When the secession of the Southern States took place, Gar- 
field's course was manly and outspoken. He was serving in the 
State Senate when hostilities broke out ; and, when the President's 
call for seventy- five thousand men was read in the chamber, amidst 
the tumultuous acclamation of the assemblage, he moved that 
twenty thousand troops aud three million dollars should at once be 
voted as the quota of the State. When the time came for ap- 
pointing the oflSeers for the Ohio troops, Gov. Dennison offered 
him command of the Forty-second Infantry ; but he modestly de- 
clined on account of his lack of military experience. But he was 
willing to serve in a less responsible capacity ; and, resigning the 
presidency of Hiram College, he accepted a commission as lieu- 
tenant-colonel. A few weeks later, when the Forty-second was 
organized, he yielded to the universal desire of its officers, and 
accepted the colonelcy. The regiment took the field iu Eastern 
Kentucky in December, 1861 ; and on the 20th of that month Col. 
Garfield was assigned to the command of the Eighteenth Brigade, 
and was ordered by Gen. Buell to drive Humphrey Marshall out of 
the Sandy valley. By a forced march he reached Marshall's posi- 
tion near Prestonburg at daybreak, fell upon him with impetuosity, 
and, after a sharp fight, forced him to burn his baggage and re- 
treat into Virginia. Afterward he was ordered to join Buell's 
army, which was then on its way to re-enforce Grant at Pittsburg 
Landing. Thenceforward for a time the military career of Gen. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 11 

Garfield Wcas merged in that of tlie Army of the Cumberland. He 
held uo separate command ; and hence the traces of his great mili- 
tary abilities are lost in the general operations of the army, or only 
now and then seen in the complimentary allusions to his services 
which were so often made by his superior officers. In August, 
1862, Gen. Garfield's health failed, and he was sent North on sick- 
leave. As he was about leaving for home, he was assigned, by 
order of the War Department, to the command of the forces at 
Cumberland Gap ; but he was too ill to accept the appointment. 
Upon his recovery he was ordered to Washington, and detailed as a 
member of the Fitz John Porter court-martial, which occupied 
forty-five days, and in which his great abilities as a lawyer and a 
soldier were called forth and freely recognized. When the court 
adjourned in January, 1863, Gen. Garfield was ordered to report 
to JNIajor-Gen. Rosecrans, commanding the Army of the Cumber- 
laud, then at Murfreesborough, Tenn., who made him chief of staff. 
He remained with Gen. Rosecrans until after the battle of Chicka- 
mauga, which was his last event of prominence in military life. 
For his "gallant conduct and important services" in this battle 
(where he wrote every order but one, submitting each to Gen. 
Robccrans, only to have them forwarded without alteration), he 
was made a major-general. This happened upon Sept. 19, 1863. 



AS A STATP^SMAK 

ELIXTIOX TO CONGRESS. A THRILLING INCIDENT. THE MAN FOR 

TPIE CRISIS. 

In the summer of 1862 he was elected to Congress from the 
nineteenth district in Ohio. At that time everybody supposed the 
war was going to end in a few months. Garfield was then with 
his command in Kentucky. He had no knowledge of any such 
movement in his behalf ; and, when he accepted the nomination, 
he did so in the behef that the Rebellion would be subdued before 



12 TUE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

he would be called upon to take his seat in the House in December, 
18G3. He was elected by a majority of over ten thousand. After 
his promotion to be major-general, Gen. Thomas offered him the 
command of a corps ; but President Lincoln, who had a high re- 
gard for him, urged him to resign his commission, and take his 
seat in Congress, and urged so strenuously that his advice pre- 
vailed. On Dec. 5, 18G3, therefore, Gen. Garfield, having served 
in the army more than a year after his election, resigned, and took 
his place in the National House. Just after Lincoln's assassina- 
tion, Garfield, who happened to be in New York, attended, as one 
of the speakers, a mass-meeting held in Wall Street, to consider 
the fearful situation. Every one was wild with excitement and 
grief ; and the people, almost driven to madness, were determined 
to wreak vengeance. What followed is best described in the lan- 
guage of an eye-witness : — 

' ' By this time the wave of popular indignation had swelled to 
its crest. Two men lay bleeding on one of the side streets, — one 
dead, the other dying ; one on the pavement, the other in the gut- 
ter. They had said a moment before that Lincoln ' ought to have 
been shot long ago.' They were not allowed to say it again. 
Soon two long pieces of scantling stood out above the heads of the 
crowd, crossed at the top like the letter X, and a looped halter 
pendent from the junction. A dozen men followed its slow motion 
through the masses, while ' vengeance' was the cry. On the right, 
suddenly the shout arose, ' The World !' ' The World !' ' The office 
of the World, World !' and a movement of perhaps eight thousand 
or ten thousand turning then- faces in the direction of that building 
began to be executed. It was a critical moment. What might 
come, no one could tell, did that crowd get in front of that office. 
The police and military would have availed little, or been too late. 
A telegram had just been read from Washington, ' Seward is 
dying.' Just then a man stepped forward with a small flag in his 
hand, and beckoned to the crowd : ' Another telegram from Wash- 
ington ;' and then, in the awful stillness of the crisis, taking advan- 
tage of the hesitation of the crowd, whose steps had been arrested 
for a moment, a right arm was lifted skyward, and a voice clear 
and steady, loud and distuact, spoke out, ' Fellow-citLzens, clouds 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAEFIELD. 13 

and darkness are round about him. His panlion is dark waters 
and thick clouds of the skies. Justice and judgment are the 
establishment of his throne. Mercy and truth shall go before his 
face. Fellow-citizens, God reigns, and the government at "Wash- 
iiigton still lires." The effect was tremendous. The crowd stood 
riveted to the spot in awe, gazing at the motionless orator, and 
thinking of God and the security of the government in that hour. 
As the boiling wave subsides and settles to the sea when some 
strong wind beats it down, so the tumult of the people sank and 
became still. All took it as a divine omen. It was a triumph of 
eloquence, inspired by the moment, such as falls to but one man's 
lot, and that but once in a century. The genius of Webster, 
Choate, Everett, or Seward, never reached it. Demosthenes never 
equalled it. What might have happened, had the surging and 
maddened mob been let loose, none can tell. The man for the 
crisis was on the spot, more potent than Napoleon's guns at Paris. 
I inquired what was his name. The answer came in a low whis- 
per, ' It is Gen. Garfield of Ohio.' " 

Such was the man whom the nation mourns. His pure and sim- 
ple manhood was his chief characteristic. It showed itself in 
all his works, and in the last dark hours when he passed througli 
the valley of the shadow of death. 



m THE CHURCH. 



HIS DEVOTION TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. HIS ENTHUSIASM AS 

A DISCIPLE. 

For such a man, only a pure and simple religion was possible ; 
and his faith was like his life, — plain and unostentatious. AVhile 
a student at Hiram College he connected himself with the Church 
of the Disciples, a sect founded by Alexander Campbell, and 
sometimes called " Campbellites." This church has a large mem- 
bership in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Southern and Eastern 



14 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELB. 

Oliio. "Its principal peculiarities are its refusal to formulate its 
beliefs iuto a creed, the independence of each denomination, the 
hospitality and fraternal feeling of the members, and the lack of 
any regular ministry." The Scriptures are accepted without note 
or comment, and any member can address the assemblies. Gar- 
field, who never did any thing by halves, entered heartily into 
the work of this communion, and soon became one of the most 
prominent members of the church at Hiram. This connection 
with the sect was never severed. "Almost every day," said 
the pastor of the Mentor Disciple Church, referring to a revival- 
meeting in which the President was once interested, "I Avould 
bring some one in who was hesitating, to let Gen. Garfield talk 
to him about some point on which he was in doubt ; and the Presi- 
dent always made it clear to him. One morning I brought in a 
political friend of the general's, and a prominent local politician, 
who had made a confession of religion the night before. When I 
told Gen. Garfield what his friend had done, he stepped quickly 
forward, and, putting one arm around his shoulder, he congratu- 
lated him, and then taking his hand said, with an impressiveness 
which I can never forget, ' This is right, Christian. Remember 
always that this is a battle where we struggle on to a beginning, 
but that it's in the endless cycles of eternity that our lives must be 
rounded and perfected.' " 



HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN. 

BLEST IN EVERY DOMESTIC RELATION. PICTURE OF A MODEL HOME. 

An account like this which did not mention the noble woman 
whose heart, of all sad hearts in this great Republic of ours, is per- 
haps the saddest to-day, would indeed be incomplete. He met her 
fii-st in the spring of 1849, at Chester, Ohio, where they were both 
pupils at an academy. She was tlien seventeen years old : that 
also was the age of her future husband. Her name was Lucretia 
Rudolph. Her father, Zebulon Rudolph, was a Maryland farmer 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 15 

from the Shenandoah Valley. Her mother, Arabella Mason, born 
in Hartford, Vt., was the scion of an old Connecticut family. 
There is a tradition in the Rudolph famil3% that one of Mrs. Gar- 
field's grand-uncles was the brilliant soldier Marshal Ney. When 
Garfield went to Williams College, Miss Rudolph commenced teach- 
ing in the Cleveland public schools, continuing that work until he 
became, in 1858, the head of Hiram University; then they were 
married. They have continued their classical studies to their own 
pleasure, and to the advantage of their older children, whom Mrs. 
Garfield has thoroughly grounded in Latin and Greek. She has 
borne the general six children, of whom five are living. The first, 
a daughter, died in infancy ; Harry Augustus, aged eighteen, and 
James R. , aged sixteen, have entered Williams College, their father's 
ahna mater. Mary, the daughter of the family, is fourteen years 
old. The younger children are Irwin McDowell, ten years old, 
and Abram, seven years old. The President said of her less than 
a year ago, " I have been wonderfully blest in the discretion of my 
wife. She is one of the coolest and best-balanced women I ever 
saw. She is unstampedable. There has not been one solitarj^ 
instance in my public career where I suffered in the smallest de- 
gree for any remark she ever made. It would have been perfectly 
natural for a woman often to say something that could be misinter- 
preted ; but without any design, and with the intelligence and cool- 
ness of her character, she has never made the slightest mistake 
that I ever heard of." 



TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR. 

HIS NOMINATION AND ELECTION. THE LAST DAYS AT MENTOR. 

GRANDEUR OF INDUCTION 'INTO OFFICE. 

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, in June, 
1880, Gen. Garfield was chosen as the candidate for President 
on the thirty-sixth ballot, after the convention had been sitting ten 
days. At the national election in November last, he received two 



16 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

hundred and fourteen electoral votes, while Gen. Hancock had one 
hundred and fifty-five. The President-elect passed the time be- 
tween the election and his inauguration in retirement at his home in 
Mentor, Ohio. Did the coming events cast their shadows before ? 
It has been remembered of him since, how he clung with prophetic 
fondness to these few brief days of happiness at his own peaceful 
fireside in the companionship of his beloved wife. It has been 
remembered of him since, how he looked out upon the great untried 
sea before him with feelings that were not wholly hopeful. A cor- 
respondent recalls how, coming in to take his leave once after a 
visit during this time, he found the wife sitting in the room where 
only the firelight threw out its ruddy glow upon the earnest, 
thoughtful face which was turned toward him. He asked her, 
standing there, if she was not looking forward with pleasurable 
anticipations to her residence in the White House. She answered 
quickly, and with unaffected sincerity, "No: I can only hope it 
will not be altogether unhappy," — words which now seem those 
of an almost inspired prophecy. 

At last the time drew near when the President-elect was to 
assume the precious dignity to which the voice of his countrymen 
had called him. The journey from Mentor to the capital was a 
hopeful and a joyful one, in sad contrast to that journey from the 
capital to Cleveland in which he was to figure in tlie coming 
months. 

The 4th of March was a great day at the capital. Washing- 
ton was decked out in her gayest. One hundred thousand people 
stood in Pennsylvania Avenue, between the Treasury and the Capi- 
tol grounds, and gave acclaim to Garfield as he passed. The 
buildings were splendidly decorated. There was a flag and a dozen 
fluttering handkerchiefs at every window. All vehicles were ex- 
cluded from the avenue, and the people hemmed in the procession 
ten deep on each side. Garfield rode uncovered nearly the whole 
distance. The procession wound around the southern wing of the 
Capitol. Garfield and Hayes alighted at the Senate wing, and 
entered the chamber. 

The procession started from the White House, the President 
lieing escorted by the first division ; and, on the return, all fell into 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 17 

line. The route was avouud the south side of the Capitol to Peuu- 
sylvania Avenue, thence to the Treasury Department, and so 
on past the White House. During the time between 12 and 1.30 
o'clock, Pennsylvania Avenue presented a remarkable sight, either 
from the Treasury Department or the Capitol. The crowd was 
continuous from First to Fifteenth Street ; and, as the time for the 
procession to move approached, the crowd increased, so that there 
seemed hardly room for the military column to enter. The regular 
troops led the way, with Sherman at their head. Behind Sherman 
were three four-horse carriages, — Presidents Garfield and Hayes. 
Vice-Presidents Arthm- and Wheeler, and Seuatoi-s Pendleton and 
Bayard. In addition to the Cleveland troops. Gen. Garfield was 
attended by the Columl)ia Commandery of Knights Templars of 
the city, of which he was a member. When the head of the pro- 
cession reached the Treasury Department, the avenue for its whole 
mile length was literally packed with people. There was a pause 
at this point, to enable the President to leave the column, and 
proceed to the grand stand in front of the White House, where he 
stood hours in witnessing the passage of the great military and 
civic concourse, which was over three hours in passing a given 
point. The route was then continued up Peuns^'lvania Avenue to 
Washington Cu'cle, along K Street to Vermont Avenue, and past 
the Thomas statue, down Massachusetts Avenue to IMount Vernon 
Square, where the procession finally dispersed. 

In the evening the ball was the grandest ever seen in Washing- 
ton. Little they knew, who participated in the festivities of this 
memorable occasion, of the scenes which would be enacted in the 
city in a few months, — how the crowds would again throng the 
streets to witness a procession. Oh, how different ! how the city 
would again be hung with drapery and flags, but with so opposite 
a meaning ! 

Of the time between the 4th of March and the following July, 
nothing need be said. Gen. Garfield's administration was never 
fairly opened. It was but a promise, the fulfilment of which never 
came. 



18 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

THE ASSASSIN'S HAND. 

THE TERRIBLE CRIME WHICH SHOCKED THE WORLD. THE STORY 

OF A DAY OF SUSPENSE AND PAIN. 

Toward the last of June the President prepared to leave Wash- 
ington for a two-weeks' trip in New England. Mrs. Garfield, who 
had gone to Long Branch on account of her delicate health, was 
improving rapidly. It was arranged that she and the two sons and 
a daughter, who were with her. should join the general and the elder 
boys, James and Harry, at New York on the afternoon of July 2. 

Meanwhile the assassin Guiteau was dogging the President about 
the streets of Washington. Having decided not to kill him at the 
church, and being deterred at the depot on the 18th of June, 
according to his own confession, by the sad, weak, and frail ap- 
pearance of Mrs. Garfield, triumph was his at last on the fatal 2d 
of July. Two pistol-shots, — the reverberation of which thrilled 
round the world, — and the wretch was hurried to the jail ! 

This happened on July 2, at 9.20 a.m., as the President was 
passing through the station of the Baltimore and Potomac Rail- 
road to take the train. Two shots were fired from a heavy pistol, 
but only one ball hit him. He fell immediately. The physicians 
made an unavailing attempt to discover the ball at the depot. It 
was evident that nothing could be done in the presence of such a 
crowd ; and the slight chances of saving the President's life 
depended upon placing him where he could have absolute quiet. 
A police ambulance was sent for, and it was backed up to the 
B-street entrance of the depot. The President was brought down- 
stau-s upon a stretcher. The doors were thrown open ; and the 
crowd parted, while the wounded man was gently laid on mat- 
tresses on the bottom of the vehicle. The President was very 
pale and weak, but conscious. He opened his eyes, and silently 
waved his hand toward the crowd. Strong men sobbed at the 
pitiful sight. As the ambulance was driven up to the south 
entrance of the Executive Mansion, the President was lifted out. 
He looked up, and saw Private Secretaries Brown and Cook look- 
incT down from one of tlie windows. He smiled, and saluted them 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 19 

with his uniojured arm. He was talven to his bed of sickness. 
During the painful hours that followed, he called frequently for 
his wife, and several times made the pitiful inquuy, " Why did he 
shoot? I had done him no harm." 

The President's condition was considered imminently danger- 
ous, — so much so that his proper treatment was neglected. From 
the time when the wound was looked at by Dr. Townsend at 9.30 
at the depot, until eight at night, it received no effection ; for ten 
hours and a half the surgeons only administered hypodermic injec- 
tions and stimulants, and did not endeavor to ascertain the true 
nature of the iujmy. At 8 p.m., when the natural consequences 
of contusion had in a great degree closed the channel of the bul- 
let, an insufficient and unskilful examination was made, from which 
it was concluded that the missile had entered the body about two 
inches to the right of the fourth lumbar vertebra, between the 
tenth and eleventh ribs, had passed through the liver, and could 
not be traced farther, and that the use of the probe would be im- 
proper. It was assumed, not ascertained, that the wound was 
mortal. In the course of that afternoon Dr. Bliss, the physician 
in charge, thought that the evidences of internal hemorrhage were 
distinctly recognizable, and that collapse was imminent. At 6.45 
P.M. he believed the patient was sinking rapidly. At that time 
the physicians considered the case hopeless. 

Thenceforth for eighty days the President was cared for by 
some of the most skilled of American surgeons and physicians. 
From time to time there were signs of improvement, and then again 
of relapse ; rays of hope and shadows of despair alternated ; but 
at last, on the nineteenth day of September, at 10.35 p.m., the 
President died in Elberon Cottage, at Long Branch, N.J. 

Though hope had gradually been going out, — though it had 
gone out entirely in the hearts of all but the most sanguine, — no 
one dreamed of the swift approach of the dread messenger. The 
day was an anniversary in the life of the suffering President. On 
the 19th of September, just eighteen years before, he had been 
made a major-general for his gallantry at the battle of Chicka- 
mauga. It has been remembered of him since, that he had said 
he thought he should die upon that day. Strange fatality I 



20 THE POETS' TBIBUTES TO GAB FIELD. 

The remains were taken, with the greatest honors ever shown un 
American, to Washington, where the}' hiy in state in the Capitol 
until their removal to Cleveland, Ohio, where they were placed in 
their final resting-place in Lake View Cemeter3\ The day of 
burial, Monday, JSept. 26, was a day of mourning throughout the 
Union, and with all Americans who chanced to l)e in other countries. 



TO THE GRAVE. 
A mourkftjT, procession all day long by the spot where the 

LATE president's REMAINS WaCRE LYINGS IN STATE FOR THE LAST 
TI3IE. 

On Sunda}' Cleveland was full to overflowing. At the lowest 
estimate, there were two hundred thousand strangers in the city, 
and the number was constantly increasing. All down the length 
and breadth of the solemn streets, vast crowds surged all day long. 
The governors of eighteen States and Territories, and their staffs. 
and about forty mayors and city delegations from the United States 
and Canada, were in town for the purpose of taking part in the 
sorrowful exercises. In the morning the Avorkmen had linished 
the catafalque, a structure worthy of the city and the illustrious 
dead. Long before daylight the peoi)le liad formed a long line 
on the west side of the square, ready for the opening of the gate 
of the western arcli. The line stretched away down .Superior 
Street, men, women, and children, to the viaduct that spans the 
river valley, and far across that to the other side. A line of mili- 
tary guarded the long procession on either hand. The crowd was 
silent. There was no loud talk, no jostling, no laughter. Pa- 
tiently, quietly, and as though the funeral were that of a near 
friend, the people waited. At last, about eight o'clock, the great 
gate was swung open, and the mournful procession i^assed through, 
across the square, and up the sloping platform to where the mortal 
remains of James A. Garfield lav in state for the last time. AVith 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 21 

heads uncoverod and bowed, the people passed by. Tears were 
in eveiy e^'e, and many wept alond. It was a most affecting and 
impressive scene. 

Then followed the funeral services : which were conducted by 
tlic Rev. Dr. Koss E. Houghton, who opened with prayer ; the 
Rev. Dr. Isaac Errett, who spoke for forty minutes in a touching 
and impressive manner; and the Rev. E. S. Pomerly, who closed 
the exercises at the Pavilion with a prayer and benediction. An 
appropriate feature of the services was the singing of the follow- 
ing verses, — President Garfield's favorite hymn : — 

''HO! EEAPERS OF LIFE'S HAPtVEST." 

Ho! reapers of life's harvest, 

Why stand with rusted blade 
Until the night draws round ye, 

And day begins to fade ? 
Why stand ye idle waiting 

For reapers more to come ? 
The goldeii morn is passing: 

Why sit ye idle, dumb? 

Thrust in your sharpened sickle, 

And gather in the grain: 
The night is ffist approaching, 

And soon vkW come again. 
The Master calls for reapers ; 

And shall he call in vain ? 
Shall sheaves lie there ungathered. 

And waste upon the plain? 

Mount up the heights of wisdom, 

And crush each error low ; 
Keep back no Avords of knowledge 

That human hearts should know. 
Be faithful to thy mission, 

In service of thy Lord, 
And then a golden chaplet 

Shall be thy just reward. 



22 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



"AFTER THE BURIAL." 



The last sad rites are over, the last sad words are spokeu : 
dust has been returned to dust, and the spirit of James A. Garfield 
has gone to the God who gave it. The people of this nation stood 
with uncovered heads, with heavy hearts, and with tear-stained 
faces, by the open door of the tomb of the martyred President. 
Who can voice their sentiments, their sympathy, and theii- sorrow? 
All recognize it as one of those supreme occasions when words are 
inadequate, when the kings of poetry and the masters of prose 
lament the poverty of language which fails to portray the emotions 
of a great people. 

The marts of trade were closed ; the wheels of industry were 
stopped ; the toiling millions rested from their labors ; thousands 
of churches throughout the length and breadth of the land were 
filled by men, women, and children, all anxious to participate in the 
solemn ceremonies of the hour ; and nearly all the buildings, both 
public and private, bore sad emblems of mourning, from the elabo- 
rate and costly display of the merchant prince to the tiny flag and 
little black-and-white streamers on the cottage of the humblest 
laborer. There were universal signs of mourning everywhere, and 
the pages of history will never show more pertinent and visible 
symbols of a nation's sorrow. 

The story of the President's remarkable career from the cradle 
to the grave, the terrible tragedy and awful suffering which ended 
in death after weeks of horrible torture, the lessons of his life 
and of the event to the nation, were set forth by masters of ora- 
tory, while the soothing strains of music and the sweet consoling 
stanzas of the song-writers were added to help voice the emotions 
of the people. At first sight the eulogies here and there may have 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 23 

soemed a trifle extravagaut in language ; but we do not believe the 
picture was overdrawn in a single instance by any intelligent 
speaker. A man born in humble circumstances, who digs his edu- 
cation out of books and experience while fighting for his own 
maintenance and that of a widowed mother ; who ascends the 
ladder of fame, round by round, in the face of fierce opposition 
and sharp comi^etition, and in his prime has reached the highest 
office in the gift of the American people, — such a man deserved 
lasting credit, and no words of eulogy can picture such a life in 
colors too glowing to suit the people and to meet the requirements 
of the case. And " it was the deep damnation of his taking off " 
which brought the early struggles and striking successes of James 
A. Garfield so conspicuously before the eyes of the nation, and 
caused a deeper appreciation of the magnitude of his achieve- 
ments. And it is for these reasons that no orator could find lan- 
guage to surpass the expectations of the people, or words even 
adequately to convey their appreciation of the record of the man. 
Mr. Sumner, in his eulogy on Abraham Lincoln, truthfully re- 
marked, "In the universe of God, there are no accidents. From 
the fall of a sparrow to the fall of an empire, or the sweep of a 
planet, all is according to divine Providence, whose laws are ever- 
lasting. It was no accident which gave to his country the patriot 
whom we now honor. It was no accident which snatched this 
patriot so suddenly and so cruelly from his sublime duties." 
These words may be aptly applied to the event the final chapter 
of which was written yesterday. The death of President Garfield 
was no accident. God saw fit, in his infinite wisdom, to bring the 
sad calamity upon this nation ; and all bow to his powerful decree. 
So far as human vision can reach, it has called forth a spontaneous 
outburst of patriotism and sympathy from fifty millions of people : 
has lifted them up to a higher plane of thought and action ; has 
shown that the people of these United States, North, South, East, 
and West, have again firmly riveted the bonds which make them 
one nation and one grand section of the brotherhoods of the 
earth.. It has taught us to be more charitable, one toward the 
other, and to take that broad and comprehensive view of human 
nature which leads us to value men for what they are rather than 



24 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAEFIELD. 

for what they are not. What other lessons the event may teach 
us, time alone can show. 

Now that the door of the tomb is closed, the great heart of the 
nation should go out in sympathy to that aged mother, that devoted 
wife, and the fatherless children. When death comes our grief 
is great ; but there is always a certain degree of consolation in 
looking upon the lifeless remains of the departed. It is when the 
coffin has been lowered into the newly-made grave, or the door of 
the tomb is shut, and we go to our homes, that the complete 
realization comes painfully and forcibly to our minds and hearts. 
It is when we see the vacant chair at the table, or the chair by the 
window Avith the view that father loved so well ; it is when the 
rooms of our home seem so desolate, and we cannot have the sad 
satisfaction of seeing even the cold clay which held the soul ; it is 
when the photograph of the well-remembered face seems to look at 
us from its post of honor in the album, or from the wall or mantle, 
and we miss him in a thousand ways in the little domestic circle, — 
then it is the heart is heaviest, the cup of grief is filled to over- 
flowing, and the future looks so hopelessly sad and dismal. And 
this is why the sympathy and prayers and tears of tlie nation should 
to-day follow the members of the Garfield family to Mentor ; for, 
when they reach their old homestead, — which the son, husband, and 
father left a few short months ago full of life and hope and " with 
his blushuig honors thick upon him," — then will their grief be 
most intense, and their anguish most poignant. That the God of 
the widow and the fatherless will watch over and bless them all 
the way along in their patliway of life ; and that the stricken 
mother, the sorrowing wife, and the fatherless children may all 
meet the faithful son, the devoted husband, and the tender father 
in the grand reunion on the shores beyond, — is the sincere and 

earnest prayer of every patriotic heart. 

— BosTox Globe, Sept. 27, 1881. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELB. 25 



THE TRIBUTES FRO:\I THE POETS. 



JouBNALiS3i, to-day, makes another gigautic stride in its onward 
march to perfection and the complete realization of its huge possi- 
bilities. It has explored continents ; its needs have compelled 
science to girdle the earth with a continuous electric belt ; its 
power makes and unmakes men ; its methods have annihilated dis- 
tance and time as obstacles in the way of the rapid and faithful 
chronicling of events. And during all this gradual and steady 
development, it has been improving in tone and spirit : as it grows 
more powerful, it grows less arbitrary ; as its facilities for record- 
ing the doings of the civilized world increase, it becomes more 
tolerant in the expression of opinions ; and as it progresses in use- 
fulness, it becomes more intellectual. The people have come to 
regard the press as the great educator, not alone in the department 
of news, but in all branches of science. It has invaded the pulpit, 
the class-room, the bench, the bar, the lal)oratory : wherever 
there is information which will benelit the masses, there will the 
journalist be found, skipping like the bee from flower to flower, and 
extracting the sweet honey of knowledge. 

But it has invaded a new field, hitherto closed to the surging 
crowd, unexplored except by the few, religiously guarded, like the 
ark of the covenant, against the pollution which contact with the 
vulgar might create, unapproachable except by the priests. It has 
invaded the sacred groves where the bards wander in mute and rapt 
contemplation of the mysteries of nature, the beauties of the land- 
scape, and the awful splendor of the firmament, — it has invaded 
the precincts of poetry. And for this intrusion it need offer no 
apology, for its purpose was praiseworthy ; and, even if its motives 
might perchance be impugned, it can point to the result, — the 



26 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

touching tributes to the illustrious dead which a brilliant galaxy of 
American poets spread over our first page to-day. 

If the public mind is puzzled over a great constitutional question ; 
if a sudden crisis arises in the affairs of government ; if the peo- 
ple are in doubt about the advisability of taking a certain step, — 
the press steps in and enlightens them. The recognized statesmen 
of the land, constitutional and international lawyers, are inter- 
viewed, or solicited to add the weight of their experience and the 
fruits of their study to the discussion. They are, by general con- 
sent, the authorized expounders of the law ; and their interpretation 
is accepted, the Gordian knot is untied, the dispute peaceably ad- 
justed, and the right principle established. Since the death of our 
lamented President, the English language has been taxed to its 
utmost to furnish a suitable medium for expressing the sorrow 
which had settled down over the land like a huge pall. These 
miles after miles of crape which hung in our busy streets, and which, 
standing out in hard lines upon bare walls, testified to the exist- 
ence of a feeling of bereavement, — what was their significance ? 
What meant the sable garb adopted by foreign courts who had 
never seen or known our dead ? Why were the churches crowded 
with sympathetic mourners who sent up prayers to the throne of 
grace for a man who differed from them in religious belief and form 
of worship ? What meant the universal regrets of the whole world, 
the general mourning and sadness of the people, the respectful, 
reverential tone in which they spoke of his life, his sufferings, and 
his death ? Who could analyze all this ? who could formulate a 
proper interpretation of the symbolic features of this terrible na- 
tional affliction ? Who but the poets ? 

And so we went to the poets, and asked them individually and 
separately to pass this great mass of undefined sentiment through 
the crucible of song, and explain to the people the secret of their 
sorrow. They have done so. The genial Dr. Holmes, Boston's 
poet-laureate, gives expression in sweetest measure to the nation's 
grief and the nation's hope; while the stalwart O'Reilly, aglow 
with Celtic fire, pictures in burning verse the mystic meaning of 
that terrible midnight knell which told the nation that its chosen 
President was dead. .Toaquin Miller, who sees pictures in the ma- 



THE POETS' TBIBUTES TO GABFIELB. 27 

jestic waving of the pines of the SieiTas, and who reads the voice 
of Heaven in the thunder which shakes the peaks of the Rocky 
Mountains, tells the story of Garfield's life, and analyzes its sym- 
bolism. And Rev. M. J. Savage contributes, of his study in the 
paths of philosophy and theology, a clever poem full of deep senti- 
ment. Rev. H. Bernard Carpenter and Harvard's latest accession 
to the minstrel choir also join in the general song, with lyres at- 
tuned to the sombre melody of the season. But not to men alone 
must the task be intrusted. The tender sympathy which has gone 
out toward Mrs. Garfield, in her great affliction, from monarch and 
peasant, from ruler and subject, from the great mass of humanity, 
has a deep significance which only woman can interpret. Those 
who will read the touching lines which rapidly flowed from the 
pens of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Marie E. Blake, Mrs. Louise 
Parsons Hopkins, and Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods, will feel grate- 
ful that in the broad republic of letters women's rights are not an 
issue, but an institution. 

We have said that ' ' The Globe ' ' has inaugurated a new depart- 
ure in journalism. We think it will prove beneficial to the public 
and to the poets. The thin partition of sentiment which has 
divided them has been torn down, and in the future their relations 
will be of a more intimate and cordial nature. When any great 
emergency arises in the future, the poets will be called on to give 
shape to the feelings of the people ; to embody in immortal verse 
the sympathies, the regrets, or the indignation, of the community. 
And they will respond : there is a precedent for both. 

With this explanation we present to our readers the Garfield 
Memorial "Globe," which in future years, when the onward march 
of journalism shall have carried it far beyond the point reached 
to-day, will remind another generation of what its predecessors 
thought out and executed. 

— Boston Globe, Sept. 27, 1881. 



28 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



POEMS WRITTEN FOR TtlE BOSTON GLOBE. 



AFTER THE BURIAL. 

BY OLIVEK WENDELL HOLMES. 



Fallen with aiilumu's falling leaf, 
Era yet his summer's noon was past, 

Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief, — 
"What words can match a woe so vast? 

AikI whose the chartered claim to si)eak 
The saci'ed grief where all have part. 

When sorrow saddens every cheek, 
And broods in ever5' aching heart ? 

Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase 
That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, 

The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, 
The silent tear that love lets fall. 

In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, 

Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir, — 

The singers of the new-born time. 

And tr<'aiil)ling age with out-worn lyre. 

No room for pride, no place for blame — 
We tling our blossoms on the grave. 

Pale, scentless, faded, — all we claim. 
This oaly, — what Ave had we gave. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAUFIELD. 29 

All, could the grief of all who mourn 

Bleud iu one voice its bitter cry, 
The wail to heaven's high arches borne 

Would echo through the caverued sky. 



O happiest land whose peaceful choice 
Fills with a lireath its empty throne ! 

God, speaking through thy people's voice, 
Has made that voice for once his own. 

No angry passion shakes the State 

^yhose weary servant seeks for rest. — 

And who could fear that scowling hate 
"Would strike at that unguarded lireast? 

He stands ; unconscious of his doom, 
In manly strength, erect, serene. — 

Around him summer spreads her bloom : 
He faUs, — what horror clothes the scene ! 

How swift the sudden flash of woe 

Where all was bright as childhood's dream! 

As if from heaven's ethereal bow 

Had leapt^d the lightning's arrowy gleam. 

Blot the foul deed from history's page, — 

Let not the all-betraying sun 
Blush for the day that stains an age 

AVhen murder's blackest wreath was won. 



Pale on his couch the sufferer lies. 

The weary battle-ground of pain ; 
Love tends his pillow, science tries 

Her every art. alas I in VMin. 



30 THE POETS' TBIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 

The strife endures how loDg ! how long ! 

Life, death, seem balanced in the scale ; 
AVhile round his bed a viewless throng 

Awaits each morrow's changing tale. 

In realms the desert ocean parts. 

What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, 

His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, 
His breathings counted with their sighs ! 

Slowly the stores of life are spent, 
Yet hope still battles with despair, — 

Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent ? 
Answer, O Thou that hearest prayer ! 

But silent is the brazen sk^', — 

On sweeps the meteor's threatening train, - 
Unswerving Nature's mute repl}', 

Bound in her adamantine chain. 

Not ours the verdict to decide 

Whom death shall claim or skill shall sa^•e 
The hero's life though Heaven denied, 

It gave our land a martyr's grave. 

Nor count the teaching vainly sent 

How human hearts their griefs may share, • 

The lesson woman's love has lent 

What hope may do, what faith can bear \ 

Farewell ! the leaf-strown earth enfolds 
Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears ; 

And autumn's golden sun beholds 
A nation bowed, a world in tears. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 31 

REJOICE. 

BY JOAQUIN MILLER. 

Bear me out of the battle, for lo! I am sorely wounded." 



From out my deep, wide-bosomed West, 

Where unnamed heroes hew the way 
For worlds to follow, with stern zest. — 

"Where gnarled old maples make array, 
Deep-scarred from red men gone to rest, — 

Where pipes the quail, where squirrels play 
Through tossing trees, with nuts for toy, 

A boy steps forth, clear-eyed and tall, 
A bashful boy, a soulful boy. 

Yet comely as the sons of Saul, — 
A boy, all friendless, poor, unknown. 
Yet heir-apparent to a throne. 



Lo 1 Freedom's bleeding sacrifice ! 

So like some tall oak tempest-blown 
Beside the storied stream he lies 

Now at the last, pale-browed and prone. 
A nation kneels with streaming eyes, 

A nation supplicates the throne, 
A nation holds him by the hand, 

A nation sobs aloud at this : 
The only dry eyes in the land 

Now at the last, I think, are his. 

Why, we should pray, God knoweth best. 
That this grand, patient soul should rest. 



32 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAltFIELD. 



The world is round. The wheel has run 

Full circle. Now behold a grave 
Beneath the old loved trees is done. 

The druid oaks lift up, and wave 
A solemu welcome back. The brave 

Old maples murmur, every one, 
" Receive him, Earth ! " In centre laud, 

As in the centre of each heart, 
As in the hollow of God's hand. 

The coffin siuks. And with it part 

All party hates ! Now, not iu vain 
He bore his peril and hard pain. 



Therefore, I say, rejoice ! I say, 

The lesson of his life was much, — 
This boy that won, as in a day. 

The world's heart utterly ; a touch 
Of tenderness and tears : the page 

Of history grows rich from such ; 
His name the nation's heritage, — 

But oh ! as some sweet angel's voice 
Spake this brave death that touched us all. 

Therefore, I say. Rejoice ! Rejoice I 

Run high the flags ! Put by the pall ! 
Lo ! all is for the best for all I 



TUE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 33 

SONNET — JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY REV. H. BERNARD CARPENTER. 

Lo ! as a pure, white statue wrought with ca1lri4^iL£|^^"^ 

By some strong hand, which moulds from Life and Death 

Beauty more beautiful than blood or breath. 
And straight 'tis veiled ; and, whilst all men repair 
To sec this wonder in the workshop, there ! 

Behold, it gleams unveiled to curious eye 

Far-seen, high-placed in Art's pale gallery, 
Where all stand mute before a work so fair : 
So he, our man of men, in vision stands, 

With Pain and Patience crowned imperial ; 

Death's veil has dropped ; far from this bouse of woe 
He hears one love-chant out of many lands, 

Whilst from his mystic noon-height he lets fall 
His shadow o'er these hearts that bleed below. 
Sept. 2G, 1S81. 



MIDNIGHT. 

SEPTEMBER JO, 1S81. 
BY JOHN BOYLE O'kEILLY. 

Once in a lifetime we may see the veil 

Tremble and lift, that hides symbolic things ; 

The spirit's vision, when the senses fail, 

Sweeps the weird meaning that the outlook brings. 

Deep in the midst of turmoil, it may be, — 
A crowded street, a forum, or a field, — 

The soul inverts the telescope, to see 
To-day's event in future years revealed. 



84 TUi: POETS' thibutes to gaefikld. 

Back from the present, let us look at Rome ; 

Now, see what Cato meaut, what Brutus said. 
Hark ! the Athenians welcome Ciraon home ! 

— How clear they are. those glimpses of the dead ! 

But we, hard toilers, we who plan and weave 
Through common days the web of common life, 

AVhat word, alas 1 shall teach us to receive 
The mystic meaning of our peace and strife? 

AVhence comes our symbol? Surely God must speak ; 

No less than he can make us heed or pause : 
Self-seekers we, too busy or too weak 

To search beyond our daily lives and laws. 

'Gainst things occult our earth-turned eyes rebel ; 

No sound of Destiny can reach our ears ; 
We have no time for dreaming — Hark ! a knell. — 

A knell at midnight ! All the nation hears ! 

A second grievous throb ! The dreamers wake ; 

The merchant's soul forgets his goods and ships ; 
The humble workmen from their slumbers break ; 

The women raise their eyes with quivering lips ; 

'I"he miner rests upon his pick to hear ; 

The printer's type stops midway from the case ; 
Tlie solemn sound has reached the roisterer's ear. 

And brought the shame and sorrow to his face. 

Again it booms ! Oh, mystic veil, upraise ! 

— Behold, 'tis lifted ! On the darkness drawn, 
A picture, lined with light ! The people's grze. 

From sea to sea, beholds it till the dawn : 

A death-bed scene, — a sinking sufferer lies. 

Their chosen ruler, crowned with love and pride ; 

Around, his counsellors, with streaming eyes ; 
His wife iieart-brolvcn. kneeling by his side : 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 35 

Death's sliadow holds her ; it will pass too soou ; 

She weeps in silence — bitterest of tears ; 
He wanders softly — Nature's kindest boon, 

And as he whispers all the country hears. 

For him the pain is past, the struggle ends : 
His cares and honors fade : his younger life 

In peaceful Mentor comes, with dear old friends ; 
His mother's arms take home his sweet young wife ; 

He stands among the students, tall and strong, 

And teaches truths republican and grand : 
He moves — ah, pitiful ! — he sweeps along, 

O'er fields of carnage leading his connnand ! 

He speaks to crowded faces ; round him surge 

Thousands and millions of excited men : 
He hears them cheer, sees some great light emerge, 

Is borne as on a tempest : then — ah, then ! 

The fancies fade, the fever's work is past ; 

A moment's pang — then recollections thrill : 
He feels the faithful lips that kiss their last. 

His heart beats once in answer, and is still ! 

The curtain falls ; but hushed, as if afraid, 

The people wait, tear-stained, with heaving breast ; 

'Twill rise again, they know, when he is laid 
With Freedom, in the Capitol, at rest. 

Once more they see him, in his coffin, there. 
As Lincoln lay in blood-stained martyr sleep ; 

The stars and stripes across his honored bier, 
While Freedom and Columbia o'er him weep 



36 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

"HE IS DEAD, OUR PRESIDENT." 

BY CHARLES TURNER DAZEY. 

[the uarvard class rOET OF 1881.] 

He is dead, our President ; he rests in an honored grave, 

He whom any one of us would gladly have died to save. 

All is over at last, the long, brave struggle for life, — 

For a nation's sake, not his own, and for that of children and 

wife. 
Doubt and suspense are dead ; dead is the passionate thrill 
Of a hope too blessed and sweet for aught but death to kUl. 
Do 3'OU remember yet, how, from that awful day 
When the pulse of the nation stopped with a shock of wild 

dismay, 
And voiceless horror looked from questioning eyes to eyes, 
As the murmur widened and spread, " Our President murdered 

lies," — 
How to the very last, like a star in a night of gloom. 
The hope of the people burned till it sank in a hero's tomb? 
We could not give him up : as a mother prays for her child, 
We prayed for his precious life, with a love as deep and wild. 
We had known him long and well as a man of royal mind. 
Who had nobly proved his birthright as a leader of mankind. 
We had watched him, oh, so proudly ! as in life's ranks he rose 
By the fair and open warfare that endeared him to his foes : 
But we never prized him rightly until he had meekly lain 
Wrapped in speechless tortures of the iiery furnace of paiu. 
Then how we learned to love him ! for all that man holds dear. 
For infinite faith and patience, and courage when death drew near, 
For yearning love that strove with a pitiful, mighty strife, 
To shield from the sting of sorrow the hearts of mother and wife. 
Then with tearful vision, purged of passion and pride. 
We saw in its tender beauty that spirit glorified ; 
And mighty love swept o'er us with a current as deep and grand 
As the Nile that swells to a sea to nourish a hungry land. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 37 

O boundless sea of love, and star of a hope that is dead, 

Not vainly our President died, not vainly our loved one bled. 

If still that sea shall sweep onward which at first so narrow ran 

Till the hands of the nations clasp in the brotherhood of man, 

Till the hate that smoulders still in hearts unreconciled 

Shall change to the sweet affection that beams in the glance of a 

child, 
And gladness shall dawn from sorrow, and glory burst from 

gloom. 
And the flower of love fraternal shall blossom from Garfield's 

tomb. 
Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 25, 1881. 



J. A. Cx. 

BY JULIA WAIJD HOWE. 

OuK sorrow sends its shadow round the earth. 
So brave, so true ! A hero from his birth I 
The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped, 
The lightning's message by our tears is shaped. 

Life's vanities that lilossom for an hour 
Heap on his funeral car their fieeting flower. 
Commerce forsalccs her temples, blind and dim. 
And pours her tardy gold, to homage him. 

The notes of grief to age familiar grow 
Before the sad privations all must know ; 
But the majestic cadence which we hear 
To-day, is new in either hemisphere. 

What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach, 
Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech ? 
The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed ; 
He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid. 



38 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 

While royal babes incipient empire hold, 

And, for bare promise, grasp the sceptre's gold, 

This man such service to his age did bring: 

That they who knew him servant, hailed him king. 

In poverty his infant couch was spread ; 
His tender hands soon wrought for daily bread ; 
But from the cradle's ):)ound his willing feet 
The errand of tlie moment went to meet. 

When learning's page unfolded to his view, 
The quick disciple straight a teacher grew ; 
And, when the fight of freedom stirred the land, 
Armed was his heart and resolute his hand. 

Wise in the council, stalwart in the field ! 
Such rank supreme a workman's hut may yield. 
His onward steps like measured marbles sliow, 
Climbing the height where God's great flame doth glow. 

Ah ! Rose of joy, that hid'st a thorn so sharp ! 
Ah ! Golden woof that meet'st a severed warp ! 
Ah ! Solemn comfort tliat the stars rain down ! 
The hero's garland his, the martyr's crown ! 
Newport, Sept. 25, 1881. 



FATHERLESS. 

BY KATE TANXATT WOODS. 

Over the land the tidings sped, 

" The leader lias fallen, our chief is dead ; " 

And over the land a cry of pain 

Began and ended with Garfield's mme. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 39 

" He is dead," said each, with tearful eye : 
" So strong, so true, why must he die? " 
And the children paused that autumn day 
To talk of the good man passed away. 

Over the laud, when the tidings came, 
Even the babies lisped his name ; 
And youthful eyes grew sad that day 
For the fatherless children far away. 

Fatherless, — word with a life of pain ; 
Fatherless, — never complete again ; 
Always to miss, and never to know. 
The joy of his greeting, — his love below. 

Missing the cheerful smile each day, 
Missing his care in studies or play. 
Missing each hour, each day, each year. 
The sound of a voice so tender and dear. 

Fatherless ! only the children can tell 
The sound of that dreary funeral knell ; 
For only they, in all coming years, 
Find the roses of youth bedewed with tears. 

Over the land, from shore to shore, 
The prayer of the children is echoed o'er, — 
"God of the fatherless, help, we pray. 
The wards of our mourning nation to-day." 

Salem, Sept. 24, 1881. 



40 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



LAUREL — CYPRESS. 

BY LOUISA PARSONS HOPKINS. 

[author op " MOTHEUnOOD."] 

MARCH 4, 1881. 

He stands at the Capitol's portal 

With lifted haud. 
The VOWS of God are upon him 

For the trust of the laud ; 

Chief true and grand ! 

His manhood turns in its glory 

To womanhood. 
To his wife and motlier he yearns 

From the multitude ; 

Heart true and good ! 

He crowns them before the people 

AVith kiss of love. 
See it, ye men, and shout, — 

Full hearts will out ; 

Rend the heavens above ! 

SEPTEMBER 23, 1881. 

He lies in the wide rotunda. 

With folded palms ; 
"Wounded for our transgression!;." 

Comrades in arms, 

Spread ye his pall. 

For the peace of all ! 

The thronging crowds have passed Iiim, 

With falling tear ; 
A queenly woman's garland 

Upon his bier ; 

Knight without fear, 

]Man l)rave and dear ! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 41 

In this his martyr- glory 

Leave him alone ; 
For his kiss-crowned wife is comhig. 

Though dead, he has known 

She would come — his own — 

To share his throne. 

New Bedford, Sept. 26, ISSl. 



THE LAST BULLETIN. 



UY MAKIE E. P.LAKE. 



Day after day as morning skies did llame, 

" How fares our liege? " we cried with eager breath, — 
" How fares our liege, who fights the fight with death? ' 

And ever with fresh hope the answer came : 

Until that solemn midnight when the clang 
Of woeful bells tolled out their tale of dread, 
That he, the good and gifted oue, was dead. 

And through his weeping land the message rang. 

Then in the darkness every heart was bowed : 
While thinking on the direful ways of Fate, 
Where Love could thus be overthrown l)y Hate, — 

" So wrong hath conquered right ! " we said aloud. 

" If this be life, what matter how it flies ; 

What strength or power or glory crowns a name ; 

What noble meed of honest}' or fame. 
Since all these gifts were his, — and there he lies 

Blighted by malice ! Woe's the day ! and dead 
While yet the fields of his most golden prime 
Are rich in all the pomp of summer-time, 

With all their ripening wealth unharvested !" 



42 TEE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 



Thus fares it with our liege ? Nay, doubting soul, 
Not thus ; but grandly raised to nobler height 
Of strength and power and most diviue delight, 

— At one swift breath made beautiful and whole ! 

Nor mocked by broken hope, or shattered plan. 
By some pale ghost of duty left undone, 
By haunting moments wasted one by one. 

But crowned with that which best becometh man. 

Holding with brimming hands his heart's desire ; 
While I he fierce light of these last glorious days. 
Blazing on each white line of thought and wa3's. 

Touches his record with immortal fire ! 

Boston, Sept. 25, 1881. 



J. A. G. 

HUMANITAS REG NANS. 
BY M. J. SAVAGE. 

With finger on lip. and breath bated, 
AVith an eager and sad desire, 

The world stood hushed, as it waited 
For the click of the fateful wire. 

' ' Better : ' ' and civilization 

Breathed freer and hoped again. 

" Worse: " and through every nation 
Went throbbing a thrill of pain. 

A cry at midnight ! and listening — 
'^ Dead ! " tolled out the bells of despair ; 
And millions of eyelids were glistening 
As sobbed the sad tones on the air. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 43 

But who is he toward whom all eyes are tnrnhig? 
And who is he for whom all hearts are yearning? 

What is the threat at which earth holds its breath 
While one lone man a duel fights with death r 



No thrones are hanging in suspense ; 

No kingdoms totter to their fall. 
Peace, with her gentle influence, 

Is hovering over all. 

'Tis just one man at Elberon, 

AVho waiteth day by day, 
Whose patience all our hearts hath won 

As ebbs his life away. 

His birthday waked no cannon-boom ; 

No purple round him hung : 
A backwoods cabin gave him room ; 

And storms his welcome sung. 

He seized the sceptre of that king 
Who treads a freehold sod : 

He wore npon his brow that ring 
That crowns a son of (rod. 

By his own might he built a throne. 

With no unhuman arts, 
And by his manhood reigned alone 

O'er fifty million hearts. 

Thus is humanity's long dream, 
Its highest, holiest hope, begun 

To harden into fact, and gleam 
A city 'neath the sun, — 



44 THE POETS' TRIBUTE S TO GARFIELD. 

A city, not like that which came 
In old-time vision from the skies ; 

But wrought by man through blood and flame, 
From solid earth to rise, — 

Man's city ; the ideal reign , 

Where every human right hath place ; 

Where blood, nor birth, nor priest again 
Shall bind the weary race, — 

/;* wlikli no Icing but man shall be. 

'Twas this that thrilled with loving pain 
The heart of all the earth, as he 

Died by the sobbing main. 

For. mightiest ruler of the earth, 
He was the mightiest, not because 

Of priestly touch, or blood, or birth. 
But by a people's laws. 



O Garfield ! brave and patient soul 1 
Long as the tireless tides shall roll 
About the Long Branch beaches, where 
Thy life went out upon the air, 
80 long thy land, from sea to sea, 
AVill hold thy manliood's legacy. 

There were two parties : there were those, 
In thine own party, called thy foes ; 
There ivas a North ; there was a South, 
Ere blazed the assassin's pistol-mouth. 

But lo ! thy bed became a throne ; 

And, as the hours went by, at length 
The weakness of thine arm alone 

Grew mightier than thy strongest strength. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 46 

No petulant murmur ; no vexed cry 
Of balked ambitious ; but a high, 
Grand patience ! And thy whisper blent 
In one heart all the continent. 
To-day there are no factions left, 
But one America bereft. 



Garfield ! fortunate in death wast thou, 
Though at the opening of a grand career ! 

Thou wast a meteor flashing on the brow 
Of skies political, where oft appear, 

And disappear, so many stars of promise. Then, 
While all men watched thy high course, wondering 

If thou wouldst upward sweep, or fall again, 

Thee from thine orbit mad hands thought to fling ; 

And lo ! the meteor, with its fitful light, 
All on a sudden stood, and was a star. — 

A radiance fixed, to glorify the night 

There where the world's proud constellations are. 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD. 

BY FRANCIS A. NICHOLS. 
O GOLDEN-ROD UpOU the hill ! 

O white-lipped lily of the lake ! 
No longer bloom to half fulfil 

A promise made for promise' sake ! 
Let brambles grow, let thistles blow : 
What careth lie? He cannot know. 



46 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAItFIELD. 

O waving fields of ripeniug grain ! 

O fruitage of the vine and tree ! 
Nor kissing sun nor soothing rain 

Again shall wake maturity. 
No seed may grow ; no man may sow. 
What careth he? He cannot know. 

O breast of woman ! bearing pain 
To round the fulness of thy life : 

No first low cry of babe again 

Shall meet the ear of prayerful wife. 

No mother's love ; no mother's woe. 

What careth he? He cannot know. 

O sun ! O moon ! O stars ! O day ! 

Forever vanished from our sight ! 
Nor love nor faith may find a ray 

For guidance from eternal night : 
The light may come ; the light may go. 
What careth he ? He cannot know. 

O grave ! beneath some clouded sky, 
Low-lurking near his hallowed head, 

Henceforth, nor mourning robe nor sigh 
Shall know the living from the dead. 

What though our hearts shall fill and flow? 

What careth he? He cannot know. 

harp attuned to holy things ! 

Forbear, in grief, to lose the strain, — 
The grand old strain the prophet sings, — 

" The dead shall rise to life again ! " 
Thus life will come ; thus life will go. 
'Tis well ! for God hath ordered so. 



THE POETS' TltlBUTES TO GARFIELD. 47 



"'TIS O'ER AT LAST." 

BY JOSEPH W. NYE. 

'Tis o'er at last — the doubtful strife, 
We watched so long in hope and fear. 

The die is cast ! With sadness rife 
We gather at our ruler's bier. 

The starry flag o'er all the land 
The story sad at half-mast tells ; 

Sounds solemnly on every hand 
The mournful requiem of bells. 

No faction breaks the grief wide-spread ; 

No State or section stands apart : 
All join in mourning for him dead ; 

He finds a place in every heart. 

The thrilling words he often spake. 
With eloquence almost divine, 

All patriotic hearts awake, 

From the Palmetto to the Pine 1 

What though our prayers did not avail. 
The suffering, prostrate form to raise ? 

Our trust in God will never fail. 

We cannot cease his name to praise. 

'• God reigns ! " His purpose underlies 
The weak designs of finite man ; 

Tlie plots which scheming men devise 
Can never thwart his wondrous plan. 

He ever makes man's wrath to praise 
His overruling power and love, 

Thus liringing men to know his ways, 
And drawino; them to heaven above. 



48 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Columbia weeps not alone ; 

The world partakes the heavy woe : 
From cot to cot, from throne to throne, 

The streams of grief and sorrow flow. 

Lo, England's Queen (God bless her!) sends 
Her tribute of esteem sincere, 

Which with a thousand offerings blends 
To crown the martyr's hallowed bier ! 

The generations yet unborn 
Will oft the tearful story tell. 

How, on that fated summer morn. 
The noble form of Garfield fell ! 

Patient and calm through trials long 
Of weariness and ceaseless pain, 

The victim of a deed of wrong 
To be repeated ne'er again ! 

Against the hand that laid him low, 

We heard from him nor wrath nor hate. 

But million hearts impatient grow 
To mete the murderer his fate ! 

What are the bays which warriors crown ? 

The spurs of gold by knighthood won ? 
His were the lion or and renown 

Of manhood true and cluti/ clone. 

Our noble leader, living still, 

Is " marching on " to duties new, 

His noble mission to fulfil 

The spirit's subtile influence through! 

Rest, patriot, in thy narrow bed, 

While flowers we culled bedeck thy mound 

A brighter crown adorns thy head. 
Where joys supernal e'er abound. 

Lynn. ^Ias.s. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAEFIELD. 49 



POEMS WRITTEN FOR OTHER PAPERS. 



ELBERON. 

BY J. "\V. TURNER. 

[From The East Boston Advocate.] 

I. 

'TwAS eventide: the stars were beaming from on high, 

The balmy breeze of autumn gently floated by, 

As at my casement gazing out upon 

The world, my thoughts were still at Elberon. 



List! dost thoxi hear that sound — that moitrnful knell ? 
Those tones that vibrate over hill and dell ? 
Froni east to west upon this midnight calm, 
From north to south — oh, hear the sad alarm ! 



Ah, yes! a nation's tears too plainly tell 

Too well, alas! to us, what has befell. 

And hope, once cherished in our hearts, has fled, — 

Our President, our noble Garfield's dead! 



O sad Columbia! stricken land, for thee 
This hour of solemn grief's dark destiny! 
The tidings now so fraught with gloom and pain 
That's lingering o'er thy great and wide domain. 



O God! we turn our inmost thoughts above. 
Invoke thy aid, — thy ever tender love; 
For by thy will, thy miglit, and thy command, 
Is life, is love, is home and native land. 



50 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 

vr. 
O wife bereft! O aged mother dear! 
O darling children in affliction drear! 
A nation bears her sympathy to thee, 
This hour of death, — of death's great mystery. 

vn. 

Oh ! teach the ones, those men who high in state, 
All noble deeds of good to emulate, 
And stay the bold and base assassin's way. 
Whose hand uplifted would a mortal slay. 

VIII. 

O thou lamented, loved of all thy race! 
From boy to man thy nobleness we trace : 
All hearts are beating sadly, tenderly ; 
A nation's tears are falling now for thee. 

IS. 

Too soon, alas ! the portals of tlie grave 
Will ope for thee, thou noble, good, and brave; 
But yet around thee in that sacred shrine. 
Oh! millions will their purest love intwine. 
East Boston, September, 18S1. 



EEST, NOBLE CHIEF. 

BY C. D. BKADLEE. 
[From The Boston Advertiser.] 

Eest, noble chief, and sweetly rest: 
Thy work is done, God's will is best. 
A faithful life is finished now: 
The seal of death is on thy brow. 

Rise, noble chief, ri-'^e up to heaven : 
Another life our God lias given ; 
And angel robes are thine by right. 
And all thy days shall now be bright. 

Take now thy crown, beloved of all. 
And hear our God's approving call; 
Whilst we on earth bow low, and weep, 
And sad and lonely vigils keep. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 51 

A TOUCHING SONNET. 

BY EKIC S. KOBERTSOIS'. 

[From The New York Herald.] 

The following sonnet was written in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, after the funeral an- 
them for President Garfield bad been sung: — 

September 25. 
ThPvOugii tears to look upon a tearful crowd, 

And bear the antliem echoing 

High in the dome till angels seem to fling 
The chant of England up through vault and cloud, 
Making ethereal register aloud 

At Heaven's own gate. It was a sorrowing 

To make a good man's death seem such a thing 
As makes imperial purple of his shroud. 

Some creeds there be like runes we cannot spell, 
And some like stars that flicker in their flame; 

But some so clear the sun scarce shines so well; 
For when with Moses' touch a dead man's name 

Finds tears within strange rocks as this name can, 

We know right well that God was with the man. 



THE MIDNIGHT OF A NATION. 

BY CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES. 
[From The Boston Transcript.] 

Thirty-eight! counted the solemn stroke 
In as many a solemn minute ! 
At the second or third the hardiest folk 
The spell of their midnight revel broke; 
The hum of pleasure, the groan of care, 
Sank to a hushed grief everywhere, — 
And the still heaven had anguish in it! 

O States ! whatever ye were before, 

Be one for an endless morrow! 

Thirty and eight ! from the very core 

Of the nation's soul doth her grief outpour. 

In this deep of Death's and Nature's dark. 

One anguish in thirty-eight breathings, hark! 

All one, all one, in the orphan's sorrow. 



52 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAB FIELD. 



AN ODE ON THE ASSASSINATION. 

[A prize offered by a London weekly for the best poem on tbe attempted assassination of 
President Garfield was awarded to the autlior of tbe following.] 

Yeil now, O Liberty! tliy blushing face, 
At the fell deed that thrills a startled world; 

While fair Columbia weeps in dire disgrace. 
And liows in sorrow o'er the banner furled. 

No graceless tyrant falls by vengeance here. 

'Neath the wild justice of a secret knife; 
No red Ambition ends its grim career, 

And expiates its horrors with its life. 

Not here does rash Revenge misguided burn. 

To free a nation with the assassin's dart; 
Or roused Despair in angry madness turn, 

And tear its freedom from a despot's heart. 

But where blest Liberty so widely reigns, 
And Peace and Plenty mark a smiling land, 

Here the mad wretch its fair white record stains 
And blurs its beauties with a " bloody hand." 

Here the elect of millions, and the pride 
Of those who own his mild and peaceful rule, — 

Here virtue sinks and yields the crimson tide, 
Beneath the vile unreason of a fool ! 



THE DEAD PRESIDENT. 

BY J. G. HOLLAND. 

A WASP flew out vipon our fairest son, 

And stung him to the quick with poisoned shaft. 

The while he chatted carelessly, and laughed. 

And knew not of the fateful mischief done. 

And so this life amid our love begun, 

Envenomed by the insect's hellish craft, 

"Was drunk by Death in one long feverish draught, 

And he was lost, — our precious, priceless one. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAEFIELD. 53 

Oh, mystery of blind, remorseless fate! 

Oh, cruel end of a most causeless hate. 

That life so mean should murder life so great! 

What is there left to us wlio think and feel, 

Who have no remedy and no appeal, 

But damn the wasp, and crush him under heel ? 



IX PACE EEQUIESCAT. 

[From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper.] 

I. 
Hush, hush ! speak softly ! 
The conflict now has reached the end: 
Life lies vanquished on the ground; 
Death with victor's wreath is crowned. 
O angels, stoop! O God, defend! 

II. 

Toll, toll, toll, toll. 

Ye brazen bells of woe and dread ! 
Thy requiem send throughout all lands, 
Sweep on to distant ocean strands: 

He lieth silent, — lieth dead. 

III. 

Gather, gather, clouds, 
O darkest clouds of sombre night ! 

Lock the golden, smiling stars 

Safe behind thy prison-bars: 
Grief wislieth not, nor beareth light. 

IV. 

Droop, droop, Freedom's flag! 
Float not thy folds majestic, proud; 

Lie thou still across the breast 

Of him the country loveth best: 
It is a well-befitting shroud. 

V. 

Yet, O Columbia! free, — 
Up from the past there rings the cry: 

"God reigns — the Government still lives!" 
In the nation's heart, that honor gives. 
He " only sleeps," he cannot die. 



54 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

SEPTEMBER NINETEENTH. 

BY L. M. S. 
[Fi-om The Boston Transcript.] 

Toll! toll! ye solemn midnight bells! 
From spire to spire the thrilling echo swells; 
And to our hearts the mournful story tells, — 
Gone ! Gone ! Gone ! 

Millions of watchers list with bated breath 
To iron tongues that tell our martyr's death. 
"Is this the end ? " each to another saith, — 
Gone! Gone! Gone! 

Is this the outcome of our prayers and tears? 
The harvest of his honest toil of years 
Buoyed by strong faith, and ne'er a prey to fears ?- 
Gone ! Gon« ! Gone ! 

And has it ended with the assassin's blow ? 
Why has it been permitted so ? 
We feel that only God can know. 
Gone ! Gone ! Gone ! 

A finished life! More perfect in its plan 
Than would have been devised by man, 
Perfected only as God can. 

Gone ! Gone ! Gone I 

Had he remained upon the chair of state, 
He scarcely could escape the fate — 
Envy and misjudgment — which attends the great. 
Now gone ! Gone ! Gone ! 

But his sublime patience on a bed of pain 
Has bound all hearts as with an iron chain: 
He has not suffered thus in vain. 
Though gone ! Gone ! 

What richer gift could bless him from above 
Than the whole nation's undivided love ? 
Without one voice that will dissenting prove, 
Now he is gone ! 



THE POETS' TBinUTES TO GARFIELD. 55 

His upright life has stood each crucial test, 
His livincj every mortal blest, 
His saintly death completes the rest. 
Gone! Gone! Gone I 

Ko more his voice a guiding star can be ; 
But his great soul lives in eternity, 
And his pure life is a reality, 
Though gone. 

Like the ripe sheaf that is cut and bound, 
Homeward along its path is found, 
Broadcast, rich grain upon the ground ; 

So all along the path he moved 

Are found in the hearts of those he loved 

Bare memories which his goodness proved. 

The words that all our hearts have thrilled 
Are ours; though the great heart is stilled. 
And the soul with noble motives filled 
Is gone! Gone! Gone! 

Again our chieftain's voice we hear: 
As the sad tolling falls upon our ear, 
The calling seemeth very near, — 
Come! Come! Come! 

Like the bell's home, the tower high. 
His life points upward to the sky: 
To his heart heaven was always nigh. 
Come ! Come ! Come ! 

God heard our prayers, not as we would: 
His great love better understood, 
And answered as a Father should. 
Gone ! Gone ! Gone ! 

Weep, strong men! ye have lost a friend! 
• With heads uncovered to your Maker bend I 
He fashioned that great soul, 
He destined this great end. 



56 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY GKOKGE A. PARKHUKST. 

[From The Lowell 'Weeklj- Journal.] 
Rest, hero, rest! Earth's pains are o'er : 

Thy greatest triumph has been won, 
As, echoing from heaven's golden door, 

We seem to hear, " Servant, well done! " 

Rest, hero, rest! For thee no more 
The tortured frame, the fevered brow ; 

But on eternity's bright shore 
The peace of God is with thee now. 

Rest, hero, rest ! Secure thy fame 
Among the pure, the good, the great: 

Time's record bears no nobler name 

Of those who served their God and State. 

Itest, hero, rest! While round thy bier 
Columbia's sons are bending low. 

No clime but drops the mourner's tear, 
No laud but shares the common woe. 

Rest, brother, rest ! In this sad hour 
We seek thy throne. Father divine: 

Though clouds of sorrow round us lowei', 
Teach us to have no will but thine. 
Chelmsfoed, Mass., Sept. 22, 1881. 



TOLL THE BELLS GENTLY. 

BY D. GILBERT DEXTEE. 
[From The Cambridge Tribune.] 

Toll the bells gently ! Garfield is dead ! 
The nation is weeping a noble son slain: 
It may be his equal we'll ne'er see again. 

Toll the bells gently ! Hope has not fled. 

Toll the bells gently ! Toll them with care ! 
" Great heart " is bleeding, and mourning her son, 
Whose greatness and goodness the world's homage won. 

Toll the bells gently! Toll them with care! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 57 

Toll the bells gently! But never despair! 
The nation still lives: her sons may depart 
Ne'er to return — iQt the living take heart. 

Toll the bells gently! Toll them with care! 

Toll the bells gently! From Elberou's shore 
There cometh a message to daughter and son 
That " God knoweth best" how the victory's won. 

Toll the bells gently! The struggle is o'er! 

Toll the bells gently! From Washington home; 
Bind up the hearts that are breaking in grief ; 
God of our fathers, oh bring sweet relief ! 

Toll the bells gently ! In bearing him home ! 

Toll the bells gently! The noble one's slain! 
On Erie's blest shore, near the home he loved best. 
Lay him to rest, brothers, lay him to rest. 

Toll the bells gently ! Toll them gently again ! 



OUR DEAD PRESIDENT. 

[From The Boston Commonweallh.] 

The dreaded news has come at last. 

Far o'er the land the tidings roll: 
The lingering life from us has past. 

And grief and anguish fill oui soul. 

We watched, with tender care and true. 
These long, long weeks of suffering keen: 

Our hopes and prayers around him grew. 
That better days would yet be seen. 

For, as the sun at times will dart 

Through clouds that threaten all the day, 

So gleams of hope for us would start, 
And make us trust the fuller ray. 

But now we know the night has come ; 

The orb has set we loved so well: 
The patriot finds the heavenly home 

Where all true souls in union dwell. 



58 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELU. 

His life was doue. Tlie power yet lives 
That builds a nation true and wise; 

And God, in his sad dyii^g, gives 
A morning pi'omise to our skies. 

For shall we not more faithful be 
To this Republic, torn and crost, 

And place her foremost of the free, 
That nothing to mankind be lost ? 

And shall we not to her accord 
A service perfect, wise, and true, 

And help along his good life-word, 
And in our lives his own renew ? 



THE MIDNIGHT KNELL. 

BY HENRY C. DANE. 

[From The Boston Transcript.] 
I SAT at the hour of midnight. 

Weary and sad and lone. 
In fancy watching the lamplight 

That from tho sick-room shone ; 
While a silence deep and solemn 

Brooded over the earth, — 
The silence attending the column 

Of angels — leading Death! 

The heart of Nature seemed throbbing 

With pity, pain, and woe. 
As it watched a nation sobbing 

With anguish deep and low, 
Wliile it waited and hoped with fear 

The tidings at the dawn, — 
The tidings it dreaded to hear 

From that cot at Elberon ! 

Once more I perused the message, — 

" It still looks very dark / " 
And thought of that noble visage 

That lay in Elberon' s — Hark ! 
Out from the towering steeple, 

Breaking the weary spell. 
Came the message to the people, — 

The deep, the midnight knell! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 59 

" Gone! " " Gone! " it rang, — that doleful bell, 

From spire and dome and tower, 
Crusliing a nation with its knell, — 

That awful midnight hour! 
On, on it rolled o'er distant West, 

Through valleys broad and deep, 
Waking a nation from its rest, 

To bow with grief, and weep. 

Daughter heroic, and mother. 

Your tortures who dare tell, — 
There without son and brother, 

By him you loved so well. 
A nation holds you to its heart. 

And hold you will forever: 
It shares with you the bitter part; 

Its love nought e'er can sever. 

Gone! gone! our hero-chieftain gone! 

Struck in his hour of might, 
And falling o'er his work undone. 

Because he dared the right. 
O people boasting of thy power! 

O nation just begim ! 
Learn thy lesson from this sad hour. 

And see thy duty done! 

Gaze on that form so tried and torn ; 

Gaze on that deep-scarred face : 
There learn the lesson not yet won, — 

The duties ye must face! 
O men of honor, truth, and power! 

O men of mighty zeal! 
Step to the front in this dark hour. 

And help our woes to heal! 

From Vernon's deep and silent shade, 

From Marshfield's solemn shore, 
From Oakland's calm and peaceful glade, 

And all the broad land o'er. 
From those who sleep in patriot graves. 

The warning voice is heard, — 
" This is your hour! be men, not slaves! 

Redeem our iMghled word I " 
Boston, Sept. 20, 1881. 



60 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAB FIELD. 

''THE PEESIDENT IS DEAD!" 

BY S. V. A. 

[From The Boston Home Journal.] 
GoxE in his fair and manly prime ; 
Gone in his faith and hope sublime; 
Gone when his feet had climbed so high, 
No step remained but to the sky; 
Then on earth's topmost round, his ear 
Caught greetings from the upper sphere, 
And angel voices whispered, " Come! 
Thy work is done! come home! come home!" 
"I'm ready; I'm content," he said; 
And while the stricken nation plead. 
In words of agonizing prayer, 
That God her ruler's life might spare, 
He with a calm, unfaltering heart, 
"Waited until the poisoned dart 
Should end its mission, whether life 
In realms above, or toil and strife 
Below might be his lot, and still 
Submissive, bowed unto the Will 
That holds the nations in His hand, 
And at whose word they fall or stand. 
O Garfield ! President beloved ! 
Kuler and statesman, tried and proved. 
We w^rite thy name among earth's peers. 
We send it down the coming years. 
Wreathed with rich honors, memories proud, 
Of courage ne'er by evil cowed, 
Of patriot deed, and lofty aim — 
We crown it with immortal fame, 
And unto thousands yet u.nborn 
The heritage we leave, that, shorn 
Of all dishonor, they may tread 
The rugged path of duty, led 
By thine example, chaste and pure 
As those who martyrdom endure. 
We mourn for thee with falling tears; 
Our bosoms swell with rising fears ; 
With grievous wounds our spirits bleed. 
O Father! in this hour of need, 
Be with our country: may the rod 
Of chastening, watered with the blood 






THE POETS' TEIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 61 

Of this most noble vic*im, bloom 
With flowers that even o'er his tomb 
Shall shed such odorous sweets, that not 
In vain the sacrifice, the blot 
That crimson stains our lovely land 
From Eastern unto Western strand. 
May such a band of heroes rise, 
So loyal, temperate, true, and wise. 
So jiist, alike to friends and foes, 
That his pure life, and e'en its close. 
Shall bear, though grief now makes it mute, 
A harvest of immortal fruit. 
Sept. 19, 1S81. 



"GOD GRANT HIM PEACE." 

BY AXNA FORD PIPER. 

[From The Boston Transcript.] 

Low lies our noble dead. 
Who for his country bled. 

God grant him peace ! 
With each new morning's ray. 
And 'mid the toil of day. 
Father, to thee we pray, 

God grant him peace I 

Gone is our guiding hand,- 
Gone to the silent land. 

Gone evermore! 
Yet while enthroned on high, 
Christ reigns in majesty. 
Father, to thee we cry, 

God grant him peace! 

Pure, noble, just, and free. 
Still may our nation be. 

Father, we pray. 
May we through darkest night, 
Led by thy beacon li.uht, 
Like him defend the right. 

God grant him peace! 



62 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY EMMA POMEROY EATOX. 
[From The Boston Transcript.] 
O SWEET and patient soul, enchiriug, bold I. 
Thy rare, ennobling virtues were not told 
Until, sore stricken by no fault of thine, 
A waiting world beheld thy strength divine. 

Hast thou not honor, when from east to M-est 
The whole world round obeys one sad behest? 
Prone at thy bier a sorrowing people lies. 
And eacli with all in lowly homage vies. 

O noble one and true ! thou canst not die. 
Throned in the nation's heart, thou liv"st for aye: 
Thine aim and purpose shall thy life outrun, 
i^or aim and purpose die, though life be done. 
Cambridge, Sept. 23, 1881. 



GARFIELD DEAD. 

EY D. P. 

[From The Capital.] 
" Duncan is in his grave: 
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. 
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
Can touch him further." — Shakspeare. 

Hurt unto death, and dead at last. In vain 
The cry of anguisb from the people wrung. 
That like a tender mother tearful hung. 

In grief sublime, 
Counting by pulse-beats the fatal s^eps of time 

Above that bed of pain. 
The land was dark with sorrow. From Avooded Maine 
To where the wide Pacific chafes the Golden Gate, 
From blue North lakes down to the Flowery State, 
From cities, hamlets, mountain, glen and plain. 

E'en from the wilderness. 
Wherever a human heart has beat, or human footstep trod, 

Went up to God 



THE POETS' TEIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 63 

The cry for succor in our sore distress. 

The fearful rent, 
Tliat internecine war wrouglit us in twain, 

His precious blood is God's cement, 
To bind us in one brotherhood again. 
Grief washed oiit Passion's angry hue, 
And mingling tears for him come gray and blue. 

In vain 
May selfish factions seek once more to reign. 

And stir to life 
Our evil passions into bloody strife, 
That once our nation's hopes in common ruin blent. 
Land whispered unto land. Beneath the solemn main. 

Through dark, unfathomed caves, the lightning-laden nerve of life 
For an instant trembled with our tale of pain. 

And nations paused, amid their vexing strife, 
To send their sorrow back to us again. 
Crowned heads were bowed ; and back-bent toil, 
Watering with unrequited sweat the alien soil. 

With uncovered head. 
Stood in the presence of our mighty dead. 
The dead have lain in state. 
The wise, the good, the great, — 
Soldier, statesman, potentate, — 
And o'er the land, to grief awake, 
Huge bells swinging to and fro. 

Solemn and slow, 
With iron tongues have told their tales of woe, 
While waves of music beat upon the air 
In rhythmed sweetness all their wild despair. 
It was oiir living that we laid in state: 

And the nation, desolate. 
Through the heavy watches with breath abate: 
And hearts nigh broken praying for the balm 
Of health again; for on that quickening breath 
And fever-hurried face rode Death. 
Ah! not for him alone: we saw with dread 
The Great Republic hanging by a slender thread; 

And he alone was calm. 
Patient and brave, as gentle as a child. 

He sadly smiled, 
While grief around was wild, 

And took the chance they gave him. Tender and true. 
How sweet and homely were his words of cheer, 
In answer to his poor wife's tears and fear, 



64 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

" Don't cry, sweetheart: we will yet pull through."' 
What recks all glory to that lonely home, 
Where sits the mother, aged and alone ? 
Of all, alas! bereft, sad she sits, and dreams 

Upon life's earlier scenes, — 
Of the hard struggle and her noble son, 
Who fought through all until the goal was won; 
And in the hour of triumph, with loving grace, 
Turned to kiss her in the nation's place. 

She cannot feel him dead: 
His manly form and noble head 

Are ever with her; he's " her baby" still. 
The dim perceptions cloud the present o'er, 

And save the pains that kill. 
The broken rainbow yet its arch retains. 
And points to earth like life. Our grave remain^, 
Whatever glory be for us in store. 

God help the brave, true heart 

That lost not hope till hope itself was dead, — 
The loving wife, who filled an angel's part. 

And smiled to cheer above a heart that bled ; 
Who crowded down the blinding tears 
And anguished fears. 
Hiding her pain. 
That she alone might nurse her lord to life again. 
Our hero's widow is a nation's care. 
Her babes the people's own. 
Ah, me! of what avail the groan. 
The lamentations all must share ? 
Vain mockery of words. They deeper grief will ; tart 
To one who carries dead like this upon her living heart. 

Thou art gone ; 
And the great world goes roaring on, — 
The cities hum of human life, the roar 
Of ocean on the rocky shore ; 
Season follows season; and o'er the land. 
In sun and storm, the farmer's horny hand 
Tills the warm earth; 
Myi'iads of men have birth, 
And myriads are carried to the tomb; 
Birds sing, and flowers bloom, 
And shining rivers roll in music to the sea" 
No more, no more; oh! never more may we 
Turn in our love to thee. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. t)5 

We search in vain, 
By mountain side, or lalce, or plain, 
Or thy loved solitude 
Of thought-haunted wood, 

Or rocky glen. 
Or 'mid the busy haunts of men: 
No more may we our hero see. 
Thy kingly form is mouldering into dust; 
Thy spirit is with God, we trust; 
Thy life has passed into a memory. 
Mac-OCHee, 21st September, ISSl. 



REQUIEM. 

BY n. L. HASTINGS. 
[From The Boston Journal.] 

Toll, toll the bells! 
The midnight silence waking. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
The nation's heart is breaking. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
Nor tarry till the morrow. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
That voice a nation's sorrow. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
A stricken widow weepeth. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
A wearied sufferer sleepeth. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
Now to thy knees, O nation I 

Toll, toll the bells! 
In God is thy salvation. 

Toll, toll the bells! 
The solemn memory cherish. 

One man has died,i 
Let not the nation perish! 
Chelsea, Midniglit, Sept. 19, 1881. 

' St. John's Gospel, xi. 50. 



66 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

GARFIELD'S EIDE AT CHICKAMAUGA. 

[SEPTEMBER 20, 1863.] 
BY HEZEKIAH BUTTEKWORTH. 

Again the summer-fevered skies 

The breath of autumn oahns; 
Again the golden moons arise 

On harvest-happy farms. 
The locusts pipe, the crickets sing 

Among the falling leaves, 
And wandering breezes sigh, and bring 

The harp-notes of the sheaves. 

Peace smiles upon the hills and dells; 

Peace smiles upon the seas; 
And drop the notes of happy bells 

Upon the fruited trees. 
The broad Missouri stretches far 

Her commerce-gathering anns, 
And multiply on Arkansaw 

The grain-encumbered farms. 

Old Chattanooga, crowned with green, 

Sleeps 'neath her walls in peace; 
The Argo has retiu-ued again, 

And lirings the Golden Fleece. 
, •' O nation! free froiu sea to sea. 

In union blessed forever, 
Fair be their fame who fought for thee 

By Cliickamauga River. 

The autumn winds were piping low, 

Beneath the vine-clad eaves; 
We heard the hollow bugle blow 

Among the ripened sheaves. 
And fast the mustering squadrons passed 

Through mountain portals wide, 
And swift the blue brigades were massed 

By Chickamauga's tide. 

It was the sabbath ; and in awe 
We heard the dark hills shake. 

And o'er the mountain turrets saw 
.The smoke of battle break. 



I 



TUE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 67 

And 'neatli that war-cloud, gray and grand, 

The hills o'erhanging low, 
The Army of the Cumberland, 

Unequal, met the foe ! 

Again, O fair September night! 

Beneath the moon and stars, 
I see, through memories dark and bright. 

The altar-fires of Mars. 
The morning breaks with screaming guns 

From batteries dark and dire. 
And where the Chickamauga runs 
■Eed runs the muskets' fire. 

I see bold Longstreet's darlcening host 

Sweep through our lines of fiame, 
And hear again, " The right is lost! " 

Swart Rosecrans exclaim. 
"But not the left," young Garfield cries: 

"From that we must not sever, 
While Thomas holds the field that lies 

On Chickamauga Bivcr!" 

Oh ! on that day of clouded gold, 

How, half of hope bereft. 
The cannoneers, like Titans, rolled 

Their thunders on the left! 
I see the battle-clouds again, 

With glowing autumn splendors blending: 
It seemed as if the gods with men 

Were on Olympian heights contending. 

Through tongues of flame, through meadows brown, 

Dry valley roads concealed, 
Ohio's hero dashes down 

Upon the rebel field. 
And swift, on reeling charger borne. 

He threads the wooded plain, 
By twice a hundred cannon mown. 

And reddened with the slain. 

But past the swathes of carnage dire, 

The Union guns he hears. 
And gains the left, begirt with fire, 

And thus the heroes cheers — 



68 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 

"While stands the left, yon flag o'erhead, 

Shall Chattanooga stand! " 
" Let the Napoleons rain their lead! " 

"Was Thomas's command. 

Back swept the gray brigades of Bragg; 

The air with victory rung; 
And Wurzel's " Rally round the flag! " 

'Mid Union cheers was sung. 
The flag on Chattanooga's height 

In twilight's crimson waved, 
And all the clustered stars of white 

Were to the Union saved. 

O chief of staff! the nation's fate 
That red field crossed with thee, 

The triumph of the camp and state, 
The hope of liberty ! 

nation ! free from sea to sea, 
With union blessed forever, 

Not vainly heroes fought for thee 
By Chickamauga River, 

In dreams I stand beside the tide 

Where those old heroes fell : 
Above the valleys long and wide 

Sweet rings the sabbath bell. 

1 hear no more the bugle blow, 
As on that fateful day : 

I hear the ringdove fluting low, 
Where shaded waters stray. 

On Mission Ridge the sunlight streams 

Above the fields of fall. 
And Chattanooga calmly dreams 

Beneath her mountain-wall. 
Old Lookout Mountain towers on high, 

As in heroic days. 
When 'neath the battle in the sky 

Were seen its summits blaze. 

'Twas ours to lay no garlands fair 
Upon the graves "unknown:" 

Kind Nature sets her gentians there, 
And fall the sear leaves lone. 



1 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 69 

Those heroes' graves no shaft of Mars 

May mark with beauty ever; 
But floats the flag of forty stars 

By Chickamauga Eiver. 



THE MINUTE-BELLS. 

BY T. H. C. 

[From The Transcript.] 

Theke passed a sound, at midnight, through the land, 
A solemn sound of sorrow and of fear, — 
A sound that fell on every wakening ear 

Bearing a message all could understand, — 

The good, brave chief struck by the assassin's hand, 
The choice of one, but to all parties dear; 
A patriot, honest, upright, and sincere, 

In presence noble, and in action grand. 
And now that death, through weeks of agony, 
Has led him to his rest, the nation sends. 
Like Egypt in her tenth and final blow. 

Through all the land a loud and bitter cry; 
And feels, like her, as o'er her dead she bends, 
There is in every home a present woe. 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 

[From The London Spectator. 1 

The hush of the sick-room; the muflled tread; 

Fond, questioning eye; mute lip, and listening ear; 
Where wife and children watch, 'twixt hope and fear, 

A father's, husband's living-dying bed! — 

The hush of a great nation, when its head 

Lies stricken! Lo! along the streets he's borne. 

Pale, through rank'd c«owds, this gray September morn, 

'Mid straining eyes, sad brows unbonneted. 

And reverent speechlessness! — a " people's voicel " 
Nay, but a people's silence! through the soul 
Of the wide world its subtler echoesr roll, 
O brother nation ! England for her part 
Is with thee: God willing, she whose heart 

Throbbed with thy pain shall with thy joy rejoice. 
Sept. 6, 1881. 



70 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

[From Andrews's American Queen.] 
Speak softly; for the midnight hell has tolled, 
And o'er the living world the news has sped 
That he who gave his life for us is dead, 
Our loved one that was cast in knightly mould. 

Tread gently till that treasured form is laid 
Beneath the sod he would have died to save. 
He who on earth was bravest of the brave 

Now sleeps in peace, none making him afraid. 

Weep sorely ; for our hearts are sore to-day 

For him who calmly suffered and was strong, — 
For him who bore a cruel, bitter wrong, 

That centuries of tears can never wash away. 

Speak kindly: let us chant our hero's praise. 
And sing of deeds that won him deathless fame; 
So that our children may revere his name. 

And learn the mighty truths of former days. 

Tell proudly how, with penury's chill hand, 
This son of freedom fought his way to place; 
Passing his compeers in the upward race, 

Until he stood the foremost in the land. 

Tread softly: he is gone, the good, the just, 
Our noble Gai-field, loved above his peers. 
Be ours the pride within the coming years 

To cherish those he loved, — the people's trust. 



IN MEMOEIAM. 

BY MRS. EVA M^AIR PARSONS. 

[From Louisville Courier-Journal.] 

There cometh a moan on the autumn air: 
'Tis the wail of a nation's dark despair; 
And its echoes athwart the billows sweep 
Of the mighty ocean, dark and deep. 
In accents low says the voice of dread, — 
" Our chieftain is numbered with the dead. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GAEFIELD. 71 

Crushed by the murderer's fatal shot, 
Now low he lies: while a loathsome blot 
Made by the deed our banner bears ; 
And the constant rain of a nation's tears, 
And the law's reward, and the hangman's due, 
And the curse of the noble, brave, and true, 
Can ne'er to its spotless woof restore 
The pure and pristine hues it wore. 

Nothing can waken and stir again. 
The busy thoughts of that silent brain; ^ 
Nought of the chemist's or surgeon's skill 
Bring to the pulses the life's glad thrill : 
Worn with its struggle, the body's guest, 
The tireless spirit, has soared to rest. 

O Goddess of Liberty, veil thy face! 
Plant thou a cypress within the place 
Where once in its glory and grandeur grew 
The chartered worth of our freedom new, 
And, over our blood-bought victories past, 
The dreary pall of bereavement cast. 

O patriots, rise and avenge the deed I 
No longer the brazen Moloch feed. 
Which stretches its arms both far and wide, 
For the gains of dishonor, fraud, and pride; 
Defiles the waters which flood the state 
With poisoned draughts of revenge and hate; 
While virtue in widowed sorrow weeps 
Above the couch where her victim sleeps. 
Louisville, Kt., Sept. 20, 1881. 



THE SOBBING OF THE BELLS. 

{MIDNIGHT, SEPTEMBER 10-20.) 
BY WALT WHITMAN. 

TiiK sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere, 

The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People, 

(Full well they know that message in the darkness, 

Full well return the sad reverberations,) 

The passionate toll and clang -city to city, joining, sounding, passing. 

Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night. 

[From a forthcoming volume] 



72 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 



GAEFIELD. 

[From Puck.] 

Lay him to sleep whom we have learned to love; 

Lay him to sleep whom we have learned to trust. 

No blossovn of hope shall spring from out his dust; 
No flower of faith shall bloom his sod above. 

Although the sod by sorrowful hands be drest, 

Although the dust with tenderest tears be drenched, 
A feebler light succeeds the new light quenched, 

And weaker hands the strong hands crossed in rest. 

Our new, our untried leader — when he rose, 
Though still old hatreds fed upon old griefs, 
Death or disgrace had stilled the cry of chiefs 

Of old who rallied us against our foes. 

A soldier of the camp, we knew him thus: 
No saintly champion, high above his kind, 
To follow with devotion mad and blind, — 

He fought and fared, essayed and eried, with us. 

And so, half-hearted, went Ave where he led ; 

And, follov,ring Avhither beckoned his bright blade, 
Learned his high will and purpose undismayed; 

And brought him all our faith — and found him dead. 

Is of the sacred pall, that once of yore 

Draped Lincoln dead, one mouldering fragment left ? 

Spread it above him, — knight whose helm was cleft 
Fair in the fight, as his who fell before. 

As his who fell before, his seat we dress 

With pitiful shreds of black, that flow and fail 
Upon the bosom of the breeze, whose wail 

Prays us respect that hallowed emptiness. 

Ay! who less worthy now may take that chair, 
If our first martyr's spirit on one hand 
And this new ghost upon the other stand, 

Saying, Betray thy country if thou dare ! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 73 

GAEFIELD. 

BY JAMES FRANKLIN FITTS. 

[From The Philadelphia Nonh-Americaii.] 
CUJCEAMAUGA, SEPT. 19, 1863. 

Undaunted 'mid the wliirlwind storm of war, 

The shock of surging foes, the wild dismay 

Of shattered legions, swept in Wood away, 
Wliile the red conflict, thundering afar, 

Kaged on the left — yet all unseen, unknown — 

Great chieftain! man of men! 'twas thine alone, 
With faith and courage high, the guiding star 

Of that disastrous field, to seek the fray 

Where still the hosts of Union hold their own, 
With wasting lines that stand, and strive, and bleed, 

Waiting the promise of a better day. 
O steadfast soul ! O heart of oak! No harm 
Could reach thee then: thou hadst for shield His arm 
Who kept thee for the nation's later need. 



ELBERUy, SEPT. 10, 1881. 

Gone are the weary, woeful weeks of pain ; 

Dead are a nation's hopes, and hot her tears. 

The immemorial cycle of the years 
Of people's woe completes itself again. 
And thou, great soul! — that through these times of peace 

Hast with thy highest might that nation served, 

And best endeavor ; v,-ho hast never swerved 
From right, midst faction's brawl that Avill not cease, 
And who, through all these carking months of woe, 

Hast held thyself as patient and serene 

As when on Chickamauga's field between 
The eddying lines that wavered to and fro 

Like stormy ocean tides, thou didst demean 
Thyself the hero, — enter now thy rest! 

A nation's grief shall keep thy memory green, 
A nation's love enshrine thee in her breast. 

LocKi'OUT, N.Y. 



74 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

HE LOVED OUR CKAFT. 

EY E. S. E. 
[From The Publishers' Weekly.] 
ISToT as for one who held with steady hand 
The centred interests of his native land, 
Not for a leader lost, a patriot dead, 
Alone our grief is spent, our tears are shed: 
We mourn a mind at rest, a great brain stilled, 
A noble intellett in madness killed. 
He loved our craft of books, that gives to man 
The garnered thoughts that past and present span, 
A tireless student still he reads the page 
That yields life-lessons both from wit and sage. 
So, while we mourn our stricken ruler slain, 
Our deeper loss but gives us deeper pain. 



GAEFIELD. 

BY AETIIUIl N. WILLCUTT. 

[From The Boston Post.] 

The lightning rends the mighty oak, 

And hurls it prostrate to the earth : 

The power that gave the deadly stroke 

Returns to whence it had its birth. 

But nevermore will come again 
To life the oak, or life to man: 

Its glory was its earthly bane, 

The height to which its measure ran. 

So Garfield fell! the assassin's hand 
Was but the force that moves unseen, 

A test, perhaps, for our loved land 
To try its faith, — on God to lean. 

Maybe some duty unfulfilled, 

Some wrongful act to race or creed. 

Has made the nation's life thus spilled 
A sacrifice to atone the deed. 

And while a wail goes o'er the land 
At Garfield's brutal, bloody fall. 

Let North and South united stand, 
And trust in Him who ruleth all. 



THE POUTS' TRIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 75 



A NATION'S SORROW. 

BY JOHN READE. 

[From The Montreal Gazette.] 
" Is this the end of our waiting and hoping so long ? 

O Death, thou hast taken our hero! The vigorous will 
Is powerless now; and the heart, so tender and strong, 

So patient and loving to all, at last is still. 

" Oh! that such as he should he stricken down in his prime, 

By a craven hand, out of fifty millions and more! 
We shall know what it means, no doubt, in God's good time; 

But now we question in vain, and our hearts are sore. 

" Thou hast pierced with thy sting, O Death! a nation's heart: 
Could nought but our noblest and wisest have sufficed? 

We would how to His will, whose servant, O Death! thou art; 
But oh! must Barabbas be ever preferred to Christ? 

" O God! thou knowest, whatever our sins have been, 
That he whom we mourn to-day was loyal and good : 

His aims Avere honest, his heart and his hands were clean, 
He never followed in evil the multitude. 

" True patriot ever, true martyr, — what nobler life 
Lives in the world's great record of deathless fame? 

And ages hence, when hushed are these sounds of strife, 
A grander nation in honor will hold his name. 

"Even now, as we stand by our soldier-slfttesman's grave, 

The martyr-seed gives promise of blessed fruit: 
Baflled and wan. Sedition forgets to rave. 

And Faction, ashamed, has been stricken stark and mute. 

" From former foes comes a voice of generous sorrow, 
And North and South have united their tears for the slain; 

While afar through the mist of our grief shines the dawn of a morrow 
When to conflict peace shall succeed, and gladness to pain." 



Such is the wail that we hear on the southern breeze. 
From a kindred race for a ruler of noble heart; 

Not unknown to us, too, are such awful sorrows as these. 
And fain, if we could, would we neighborly solace impart. 



76 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

O wife and children dear! O mother revered! 

While your nation weeps with you for its martyred chief, 
His memory makes you to all mankind endeared, 

And monarch and peasant share alike in your grief. 

God grant you comfort, bereaved ones, and pitying love. 
To whom the widow and orphan are ever dear. 

And bring you at last to that happy home above, 
Where friends part never, and love casts out all fear. 



Thy ways, O God! are far as east to west from ours; 

Thou seest of all that happens beginning, middle, and end; 
What now is bitter seed may one day be sweet flowers, 

And what seems now so dark to light and joy may tend. 

Even in this sad season of a nation's fiery trial. 

And searching of the hearts of men that sit on high, 

'Tis well to know, that, in au age of doubting and denial, 
There are such men as Garfield Avas, in faith to live and die. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

BY LILIAN WHITING. 

[From The Cincinnati Commercial.] 
Oh! where shall we lay our deep sorrow ? 

How speak of our loss ? 
Since our hero, our martyr, is given 

The crown for the cross ? 

Since he, our ruler, our leader, 

Our nation's true guide. 
Has entered that rest which remaineth 

In the fair summer-tide ? 

He has fought the good fight; he has entered 

The rest that God gave ; 
And the lives he has blessed bring the tribute 

We lay on his grave. 

For all, in his presence benignant, 

Were exalted and cheered ; 
And virtue seemed more to be cherished, 

And sin to be feared. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELB. 11 

Our coiintiy, whose lessons our martyr 

So faillifully taught, 
Brings its tears and its love, — ay, its gladness, 

For the work that he wrought. 

Bring your gratitude, country immortal, 

O'er land and o'er sea! 
For the tears of two nations shall mingle, 

Our hero, for thee ! 

Oh! still from that life thou has entered, 

Behold us, we pray ; 
Vouchsafe still to guide and direct us, 

And teach us the way. 

And so, in the liush of the autumn, 

In its silence and calm, 
We will gather the few leaves of healing, 

For sorrow a balm ; 

And remember his greatness, his honor, 

His rare culture and grace. 
His rich gifts and firm faith that no other 

Can hope to replace. 

And still will the God of the nations 

Make our sorrow a shrine 
When we wait, in sublime aspirations, 

The guidance divine! 
Boston , Sept. 21, ISSl. 



OUR DEAD PRESIDENT. 
BY c. n. c. 

[Fiom The New-York Tribuce.] 
Who has the fitting word. 
When every breast is stirred 

With sorrow far too deep for words to tell ? 
Yet as, amid death's gloom. 
Friends whisper in the room, 

We speak of him who lived and died so well. 

Night reigned beside the sea, 
When morning came to thee, 

Long-waiting heart, so patient and so brave! 
Light fell upon thy door, 
Pain ceased forcvcrmore. 

Back to its Maker fled the life he gave. 



78 • THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Like messengers in quest, 
Then started east and west 

Two tidal waves of sorrow round the world : 
Millions of eyes were wet 
Before the tidings met 

Where in the Eastern seas our flags are furled. 

Quickly, through throbbing wire. 
Those waves of sorrow dire 

Awoke across the land the mournful bells : 
Men roused, and could not sleep; 
For, pulsing strong and deep. 

All hearts that knew were ringing funeral knells. 

Wives gazed in husbands' eyes, 
And tears would slowly rise 

For her who fought with Death so long alone ; 
And children with no task 
Were left themselves to ask, 

Why Death this father took, and not their own. 

On all the shadow falls: 
It hushes college halls, 

It consecrates the cabins of the West; 
The frecdmen loved him well; 
Soldiers his praises tell ; 

The rudest boatman is too sad to jest. 

Still, over hills and dells, 
The beautiful sad bells 

Repeat the nation's sorrow for her son ; 
But he doth hear the chime 
Of a more peaceful clime 

Than Mentor's fields or quiet Elberon. 

Like him, the Crucified, 
He, who so calmly died. 

Has made the world the better for his pain: 
Surely we now may know 
Our leader was laid low 

To lift the nation to a higher plane. 

We say as once he said, — 
Our hero-ruler dead, — 

" The Lord still reigns, the country is secure." 
There's none can fill his place: 
Kule Thou, O God of grace! 

And guide us on to days more bright and pui-e. 



THE POETS' TBIBUTES TO GABFIELD. 79 



LAKE-VIEW CEMETERY. 

BY W. D. KELLY. 

[From The Boston Pilot.] 

God rest liis soul! and may the victor's crown 

Of immortality inwreathe his head 

Whose spirit from its mortal frame has fled ! 
Sadly and reverently we lay him down, 
While, tolling in the city and the town, 

The bells ring requiems for our ruler dead; 

But all the tei,irs that sympathy can shed 
Serve not the sorrow of our hearts to drown, 
Wlio recognize that he, whose noble life 

Such woeful termination murder wrought, 
Was sacrificed in an ignoble strife. 

Where worthless demagogues for office fought, 
Wlrere greed was uppermost, and passion rife. 

And honesty of purpose valued nought. 

Back from the seaside, where but yesterday 
We bore him in the hope the breezy shore 
His failing forces might again restore, 

Only to see them slowly waste away ; 

Into the Capitol, where, while he lay, 
The spirits of the great men gone before, 
His predecessors in its halls of yore. 

Kept watch and guard above his pulseless clay; 

To this fair city of the mighty West, 
To the broad bosom of his native State, 

That nursed him for us on her hardy breast, 
And sent him forth to this untowai-d fate. 

We bring his soulless shape, that it may rest 
Within his mother's keeping and estate. 

But he is hers no more! the people claim 
Him as their heritage; and on the scrolls 
Where Immortality the names enrolls 

Of those whose lives have won undying fame, 

Their hands have written Garfield's, and the same 
Shall have a charm to move our children's souls 
As long as democratic pride controls 

Their hearts, and murder be accounted shame: 



80 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

The South shall vie in praises with the North, 
The East yield not in worship to the West, 

But all alike pay homage to his worth. 

Who, if he failed in some things, stood the test 

Of his last, greatest trial, and went forth 

Out of his own land, mourned by all the rest. 

No king was he! but never king, I trow. 
Wore richer diadems than these our love 
Places to-day his poor, pale brows above. 

We could not crown him while he lived; but now 

That he has gone from us, our hands endow 
Him with the sceptre, and our hearts approve 
Whatever honors patriotism may move 

The land to give him: fifty millions bow 

In grief beside this Presidential grave, 
Where the dark cypresses their branches toss, 

Who mourn that neither prayer nor skill could save 
Their country from the anguish of his loss, 

And each one feels the crowns that monarchs have. 
Compared to his, are vile and worthless dross. 

And thus we leave him in his narrow bed, 

Anear the marr-in of yon placid lake. 

Where the soft music of the waves that break 

Upon the sandy shores beneath us spread. 

Sing their eternal requiems for the dead; 

But what can heal the wounds that bleed and ache 
In hearts that loved him for his own dear sake, 
And will not in their grief be comforted! 
O Christ! who, when the widow lost her son. 

Gave him baek life to ease his mother's dole ; 
With whom the endless ages are but one. 

That has no origin, that knows no goal,— 
We do not murmur that thy will is done. 
But crave thy rest for this beloved soul. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 81 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 

[From The Independent.] 

" E venni dal mnrtirio a questa pace." 

These words the Poet lieard in Paradise, 
Uttered by one who, bravely dying here, 
In the true faith, was living in that sphere 

Where the Celestial Cross of sacrifice 

Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies ; 
And, set thereon, like jewels crystal clear, 
The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear, 

Plashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes. 

Ah, me! how dark the discipline of pain. 

Were not the suffering followed by the sense 
Of infinite rest and infinite release ! 

This is our consolation ; and again 

A great soul cries to us in our suspense : 
" I came from martyrdom unto this peace ! " 

Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 26, 18S1. 



BY THE SEA. — SEPTEMBER 19, 1881. 

BY MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 

Watchman! what of the night? 
The sky is dark, my friend. 
And we in heavy grief await the end. 
A light is burning in a silent room. 
But we — we have no light in all the gloom. 

Watchman! what of tiie night? 
Friend, strong men watch the light 
With the strange mist of tears before their sight, 
And women at each hearthstone sob and pray 
That the groat darkness end at last in day. 

Watchman ! how goes tlie niglit? 
Wearily, friend, for him, 
Yet his heart quails not, though the light burns dim. 



82 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

As braveh' as he fought the field of life, 
He bears hhnself in this, the final strife. 

Watchman! what of the night? 
Friend, we are left no word, 
To tell of all the bitter sorrow stirred 
In our sad souls. We stnnd and rail at Fate 
Who leaves hands empty and hearts desolate. 

" Are pure, great souls so many in the land 
That we should lose the chosen of the band?" 
We cry ! But he who suffers lies, 
Meeting sharp-weaponed Pain with steadfast eyes, 
And makes no plaint, while on the threshold Death 
Half draws his keen sword from its glittering shcatli 
And looking inward pauses — lingering long, 
Faltering — himself the weak before the Strong. 

Watchman! how goes the night? 
In tears, my friend, and praise 
Of his high truth and generous, trusting ways ; 
Of his warm love and buoyant hope and faith. 
Which passed life's fires free from all blight or scath. 
Strange ! we forget the laurel-wreath we gave, 
And only love him standing near his grave. 

■Watchman! what of the night? 
Friend, when it is past 

We wonder what our grief can bring at last, 
To lay upon his broad, true, tender breast. 
What flower whose sweetness shall outlast the rest? 
And this we set from all the bloom apart : 
"He woke new love and faitli in every heart." 

Watchman ! what of the niglit? 
Would God that it were gone 
And we might see once more the rising dawn ! 
The darkness deeper grows — the light burns low, 
There sweeps o'er land and sea a cry of woe ! 

Watchman! What now? Wliat now? 
Hush, friend — we may not say 
Only that— all the pain has passed away. 



I 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 83 



SEPTEMBER 19, 1881. 

BY THOMAS BAILEV ALDEICH. 

In their dark House of Cloud 
The three weird sisters toil till time be sped. 



Clotiio. 
How long, O sister, how long 

Ere the weary task is done? 
How long, O sister, how long 

Shall the fragile thread be spun? 

Lachesis. 
'Tis mercy that stays her hand, 

Else slie had cut the thread ; 
Slie is a woman too, 

Like her who kneels by his bed ! 

Atropos. 

Patience ! the end is come : 
He shall no more endure ; 

See ! with a single touclr ! — 
My hand is swift and sure. 

II. 
First Angel. 

Listen ! what was it fell 

An instant since on my ear — 

A sound like the throb of a bell 
From yonder darkling sphere ! 

Second Angel. 
The planet where mortals dwell ! 

I hear it not . . . nay, I hear ! — 
A sound of sorrow and dole ! 

FiR.sT Angel. 

Listen ! It is the knell 

Of a passing soul ! — 
The midnight lamentation 
Of a stricken nation' 

For its Chieftain's soul ! 



84 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



GARFIELD. 

[From The Spriugfiold Republican.] 

Laurel-crowned our hero lies ! 

Heavy the hearts that loved him ; 
By his bier the bitter tear 

Falls for the fatal sacrifice ; 

But his deeds shall live in story- 
All his greatness, all his glory, 

Trumpet-toned, recorded be 

By the muse of history. 



GARFIELD, PRESIDENT OF THE PEOPLE. 

{Died, Septemher 19, 1881.) 

BY GEORGE PARSONS JLATHROP. 

What is this silence, that calls? 

What is this deafness, that hears? 
The silence is Death. Like a voice it falls ; 

It rings in the heedless ears, 
That never shall hearken again 

To the words of our blame or praise, 
Nor the low-hushed moan of a nation's pain, 

As it rolls through the darkened days ! 
And the motionless body must yield 

To the spell of that hushed command. 
Oh, that one of us, dying, had been the shield, 

To save that life for our land ! 
Garfield — the name so plain, 

The name we knew so well ! — 
The name, we shall never forget again, 

Of the man who for honesty fell ! 

Man that Avas trusted of men — 

Brave, and not fearing to die 
More than to face life's meanness, when 

It clamored its partisan lie ! — 
Though you leave us, Ave lose you not! 

In the republic you live 
Sacred, and part of its deathless lot, 

For Avhose life j^our life you give. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 85 

sorrow, that falls like a stone 

In the midst of the calm of our peace, 
As the waves of pity around you have grown, 
So may our truth increase ! 
In England, Sept. 20, 1881. 



PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN. 

[From The Independent.] 
Yea, he is dead whom in its heart the nation 

Through anxious summer vigils sadly bore, 
And powerless are tears and supplication 

To bring our chieftain back forevermore. 

The darkness swept him to the shadowy shore. 
Where echoes not our voice of lamentation ; 

In vain the tolling bells ring dirges o'er him. 

And nations mourn, united, and deplore him. 

How nobly met he, and with heart unquailing, 
In stalwart manhood's prime, his bitter doom ; 

And bravely fought, with faith and cheer unfailing. 
The weary flght through endless days of gloom ! 
Nay, even within the shadow of the tomb, 

"While slowly ebbed his strength and life-blood paling. 
His smile lit up the night that deepened round him. 
And gentle, fearless, calm. Death's angel found him. 

And how, with breathless hope and spirit shaken. 
The nation watched beside its martyr's bed. 

And saw his life's flame flutter and awaken 
With fitful flicker, as it upward sped ! 
Though absent, we beheld iiis fallen head, 

Yet by its nuinly beauty unforsaken. 

By dolor wasted, and his eye grow dimmer, 
Until the gloom engulfed its last fond glimmer. 

His was a vigorous soul, of auiiiler vision 

Than tlu)se who blindly grope in lionor's quest. 

Unnurtured by Europe's worn tradition, 
He sprang, puissant, from the virgin West. 
And, suckled at a noble mother'.s breast. 

He drank our soil's stern manhood and ambition. 
And rose from humble toil to lieights of sjjlendor, 
His country's pride and hojic ami her defender. 



86 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Alas ! the dart of Death, with cruel fleetness, 
Found his great heart, for he was foully slain. 

Yet his career was grand. Its incompleteness 
Gives it a larger mission and domain ; 
For vainly he lives not, nor dies in vain, 

Whose life is full of valor, light, and sweetness, 
And at whose bier a sundered people gather. 
To weep as for a common friend and father. 
New York City, Sept. 20, 1881. 



WHY SHOULD THEY KILL MY BABY? 

BT AVILL CARLETOX. 

[From " Farm Ballads," Harper & Brothers, New York.] 

[The aged mother of the Presidcut is reported to have exclaimed as ahove upon hearing the 
news of his attempted assassination.] 

Why should they kill my baby — for he seems the same to me 

As when, in the morning twilight, I tossed him on ray knee. 

And sowed for him hopes to blossom when he should become a man, 

And dreamed for him such a future as only a mother can. 

I looked ahead to the noon-time with proud but trembling joy ; 
I had a vision of splendor for my sweet, bright-eyed boy : 
But little enough I fancied that when he had gained renown 
Base Envy's poisoned bullet would suddenly strike him down. 

Why should they want to kill him? Because he had cut his way 
Through Poverty's gloomy woodland out into the open day. 
And sent a shout of good cheer to those who were yet within, 
That honor is born of striving, and honesty yet can win? 

Or was it because from boyhood he manfully bared his breast 
To fight for the poor and lowly and aid the sore oppressed? 
Ah me ! the world is working upon a treacherous plan 
When he who has struck for mankind is stricken down by man ! 

Or did they begrudge his mother the hand he reached her still, 
No odds how high he clambered up Fortune's glittering hill? 
For in his proudest life-day he turned from the honors of earth, 
And came and tenderly kissed me — the mother who gave him birth. 

Shame on the wretch Avho struck him and prays that the blow maj- kill I 
And pity for his poor mother, if she be living still ! 
May God in mercy aid him his black crime to atone. 
And help me to forgive him — I cannot do it alone ! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 87 

GARFIELD. 

BY MARTIN FARQUIIAR TUPPER. 
[From The New York Evening Post.] 

The wondrous providence of God most high 

Forever out of evil worketh good, 

And even through that murderer's deed of blood 
Hath power to draw divergent peoples nigh 

By one strong bond of yearning brotherhood. 

Thou heaven-born king of men ! to death subdued 
After those eighty days of struggling pain, 

Yet hast thou conquered death, so long withstood ; 

For when at length rest claimed thee from that strife, 
We know thou didst not live, nor die, in vain — 

A man both great in death and good in life. 
And let us praise another, standing by. 
Brave-hearted nurse through that long agony, 

Angel of love and hope — thy widowed wife ! 
Ti'PER Norwood, Sept. 26, 1881. 



ASSASSINATION. 

BY PAUL H. HAYNE. 



O blinded readers of the score of Time, 

Think ye that Freedom yields her hand to crime? 

Or the fair whiteness of her virginal bud 

Of heavenly hope would desecrate with blood? 

Her eyes are chastened lightnings, and the fire 
Of her divinely purified desire 

Burns not in ambush by assassins trod. 
But on the holiest mountain heights of God ! 

So, ye that fain would meet her fond embrace. 
Purge the base soul, unmask the treacherous face. 

Drop bowl or dagger while ye bring her naught 
But the grand worship of a selfless thouglit! 



88 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

\ 

AFTER ALL'S DONE. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." 
His wife asked him whore was his pain. Garfield answered, " Darling, even to live is pain." 

To live was pain — to die is peace ; 

Falling asleep in tender arms ; 

Ended vain hopes, more vain alarms, 
Blind struggles for impossible ease. 

Yes, life was loss, and death is gain ; 

The martyr's blood, the church's .seed. 

O Christian, to Christ's world-large creed, 
Faithful to death ! — die, rise and reign ! 

Reign, king-like, o'er the souls of men; 

Shame them from jjaltry lust of gold. 

From public honor bought and sold, 
From venal lie of tongue or pen. 

Reign in the hearts of women brave, 

Fit mothers of the men to be ; 

Like that true woman loved by thee, 
Whom God so loved He could not save. 
But thou art saved — her hero ! Thine 

The glorious rest of battle won, 

A setting of the mid-day sun, 
And, lo ! the stars burst out and sliine. 

No long dull twilight of- weak age, — 

Morn's glow forgot in misty night; 

Thy record was full writ in light. 
And then — thine angel closed the page. 

All's done, all's said. The tale is told. 

Across the ocean hands clasp hands ; 

One voice of weeping from all lands 
Binds the New World unto the Old ; 

Then — silence ; and we go our ways. 
Work our small work for good or ill ; 
But thou, through whom the Master's will 

Was done, and didst it, to His praise, 

Go straightway into eternal light ! 

On earth among the immortal dead ; 

In heaven — that mystery none hath read ; 
We walk by faith, and not by sight. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 89 

But this we know, or feel, half known : 

He who from evil brings forth good. 

His message, although writ in blood. 
He left upon thy funeral stone. 



OUR DEPARTED PRESIDENT. 

BY ALFRED NEVIN, D.D. 

Bear him back in silent sorrow, 

Place him 'neath his native sod ; 
There in angels' guard to slumber. 

Whilst his spirit rests in God. 
Bear him back, the nation's hero — 

At her highest altar slain — 
Hero on the field of battle — 

Hero on the bed of pain. 

Bear him back, where his dear household 

To his tomb may oft repair — 
Cherished mother, wife and children. 

Feeling that he still is near. 
Bear him back, the struggle's over, 

Doubt and weariness and pain. 
Though but few may be his cortege, 

Mourning millions make his train. 

Bear him back, and though grief's passion 

Soon may be assuaged and calmed, 
In the world's well-won affection 

Will his mem'ry be embalmed; 
Bear him back, nor o'er his ashes 

Let a broken shaft be placed — 
Life, though short, is nobly finished, 

When with excellence so graced. 

Bear him back ; yet his example. 

Bright and true, and good and pure, 
Ling'ring wit i the stricken nation. 

Through long ages will endure. 
Bear him back, nor let faith falter, 

Though her prayers did net prevail, 
We must trust in densest darkness 

Him whose love can never fail. 



90 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



HYMN. 

BT PROFESSOR DAVID SWING. 

Now all ye flowers make room, 
Hither we come in gloom, 
To make a mighty tomb, 

Sighing and weeping. 
Grand was the life he led, 
Wise was each word he said. 
But with the noble dead 

We leave him sleeping. 

Soft may his body rest, 
As on his mother's breast. 
Whose love stands all confessed 

Mid blinding tears. 
But may his soul so white 
Rise in triumphant flight. 
And in God's land of light 

Spend endless years. 



"ANOTHER MARTYR." 

BY PROFESSOR G. T. R. KNOIVR. 

Another martyr for country has fall'n. 

Another true son been taken ; 
Again with great grief does the nation mourn, 

All hearts to woe forsaken. 
But the nation lives, and each patriot son 

With each patriot son shall vie 
In recalling the deeds he has bravely done, 

And his life's Avork ne'er shall die. 

We'll bear him away — our country's dead — 

His bier Avith sweet flow'rs o'erstrewing ; 
We'll lay him to rest in our mother earth, 

His grave with tears bedewing. 
But God doth reign, and His praise we'll sing, 

Though deep in our woe we lie — 
We'll pray for strength in the days to come. 

And our faith shall never die. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 91 

TOLL FOR THE CHIEF. 

BY CHARLES J. BEATTIE. 

[From the Inter-Ocean.] 
Toll f^r the chief! the august martyr chief, 

That so tenderly we carry to the grave, 
As our brothers onward march, "beneath a living arch," 
With slow and solemn tread march the brave ; 
With arms reversed and craped. 
With banners darkly draped. 
As mournfully above his corse they wave. 

Toll for the brave ! the gallant soldier brave, 

Ever steadfast to his trust, ever faithful, ever just; 
Who, in siege or battle-field, was never known to yield ; 
Oh, lay him gently down, as we whisper " dust to dust." 
Forever rest the dead 
In this doubly honored bed, 
While his spirit soars away from "moth and rust." 

Toll for the true ! The statesman, good and true, 

On the rostrum, in the forum, and the hall ; 
Who espoused the people's cause, for just and equal laws. 
And struggled for the right at their call. 
Lay his honored relics down ; 
He has won a hero's crown. 
And the nobles of the earth bear his pall. 
(Chicago, Sept. 24, 1881. 



GARFIELD. 



[From London Punch.] 
So fit to die ! With courage calm. 

Armed to confront the threatening dart ; 

Better than skill is such high heart. 
And helpfuller than healing balm. 

So fit to live ! With power cool 
Equipped to fill his function great. 
To crush the knaves who shame the State, 

Place-seeking pests of honest rule. 

Equal to either fate he'll prove; 

May Heaven's high will incline the scale 
The way our prayers would fain avail 

To weight it — to long life and love ! 



92 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

ENGLAND TO AMERICA. 

[From Loudon Punch.] 

Silence were best, if hand in hand, 
Like friends, sea-sundered peoples met; 

But words must wing from land to land 
The utterance of the heart's regret. 

Though harsh on ears that Sorrow thralls 

E'en Sympathy's low accent falls. 

Salt leagues that jiart us check no whit. 

What knows not bounds of time or space, — 

The homestead feeling that must knit 
World-scattered kin in speech and race, 

None like ourselves may well bemoan 

Columbia's sorrow ; 'tis our own. 

A sorrow of the noble sort, 

Which love and pride make pure and fair ; 
A grief that is not misery's sport; 

A pain that bows not to despair : 
Beginning not in courtly woe, 
To end in pageantry and show. 

The great Republic's foremost son. 
Struck foully, falls ; but they avIio mourn 

Brave life cut short, good work half done, 
Yet trust that from beyond Death's bourne 

That blameless memory's gifts may be 

Peace, Concord, Civic Purity. 

Scarce known of us till struck for death, 
He stirred us by his valiant fight 

With mortal pain. With bated breath 
We waited tidings morn aiid night. 

The hope that's nursed by strong desire, 

Though shaken often, will not tire. 

And now our sables type, in truth, 
A more than ceremonial pain. 

We send, Court, Cottage, Age and Youth, 
From open hearts, across the main. 

Our sympathy — it never swei'ved — 

To Wife he loved, to Land he served. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 1)3 



THE NATION'S GRIEF. 

BY PROF. THOMAS NELSON HASKELL 

With awe profound this clay 
The Nation bows to pray 

In bitter grief : 
And througli the stricken land 
The broken-hearted stand, 
And mourn on every hand 

Tlieir martyred Cliief. 

The Almighty Ruler hears 
His sorrowing people's tears 

Fall at his feet; 
Makes our just cause his care, 
Indites and hears our prayer, 
And for us still makes bare 

His mercy-seat. 

O Thou who hast removed 
"Him whom the people loved" — 

Thy servant rare — 
Who gavest him strength and light 
To see and guard the right, 
Still grant Thy holy might 

To men of prayer. 

Bless still our Nations head — 
Successor of the dead — 

And keep his life ; 
While armies cease their tread. 
And those who fought and bled. 
Rest in their peaceful bed, 

Heal all our strife. 

Comfort each stricken one, 
O God, the Father, Son 

And Holy Ghost; 
While in our hearts we own 
That here Thy love is known, 
And Thine the only throne, 
Of which we boast. 
Denver, Col. 



94 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY WAKE HUBBELL. 

He climbed the rough and rugged hill of fame, 
And there he writ his everlasting name ; 
In letters bright and pure as shining gold, 
The story of his life he briefly told. 

A little mound — the greenest spot, 
And sighing winds around his cot, 
And willows sad, and lone and drear, 
And where we all shall shed a tear. 

The marble slab with age will rust, 
And bones of his turn into dust; 
But while the stars are in the sky 
His name will live, and will not die. 
WiNTON Place, O. 



AT ELBERON. 

BY FAY HEJIPSTEAU. 

After so long a time ! Merciful father. 
Pity the land were the dead ruler lies ! 

Vainly she utters her sorrows unceasing, 

Earthwardly bending her tear-burdened eyes. 

Dead in the prime of his manhood and lustre ; 

Dead at the crest of his worthy-won fame ; 
Leaving enwreathed in the hearts of his people 

Forever, the light of an undying name. 

Grandly he wrought in the world's sturdy battle ; 

Grandly he scaled honor's dizziest height ; 
Then, as an eagle would, heavenward ascending, 

Passed into clouds and was lost to the sight. 

Breathless the nation has watched o'er his pillow ; 

Praying — oh, never was earnester made! — 
Hoping — heart-weary — yet hoping unshaken 

Still, that the death-angel's hand might be stayed. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 95 

Through the long days of the fierce-flaming summer, 

Far into autumn-time braTely strove he, 
Only to sink in the grasp of the victor. 

There by the shores of the low-moaming sea. 

Ah ! who can say what a sigh and a shudder 
Ean through the uttermost bounds of the land, 

When the deep tones of the towers at midnight. 
Told the sad tale that the end was at liand ! 

Who that can tell of the tears shed in secret, 

Quivering lips on the down-bended head, 
As the faint light of the first rays of morning. 

Shone where the hope of the Nation lay dead ! 

Bury him, then, with the whole people weeping ! 

Toll the slow bell in its mournfuUest tone ; 
Weep with the widowed one ; weep for the fatherless ; 

Ours is a grief like a kinsman were gone. 

Muffle the drum, and with low-drooping banners 

Bear home the soldier-chief, gone to his rest ! 
There lay him asleep, the beloved of his country, 
Close by the wide-spreading plains of the West ! 
Little Rock, Akk., Sept. 20, 1881. 



JAMES ABRAM GAKFIELD. 

BY SARAH DEWOLF GAMWELL. 

[From 'J'he Springfield Republican.] 

Dead? Did we ask that he might die? 

Is it for this we pray? 
Dead? And the heart of tlie nation breaks, 

And tlie world is dumb to-day ! 

Clang, iron tongues ! Toll, niuttted bells ! 

Ye powers of evil, come ! 
Ye have done your worst; ye have done your best ! 
Midnight with us ! but he is at rest ! 

And the world, the world is dumb ! 
Westfield, Sept. 20, 1881. 



96 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



TO MRS. GARFIELD. 

BY THEODORE WATTS. 
[From The London Athenaeum.] 
Unsullied days with toil and struggle rife 

Will win at last ; yea, God had given him all — 

A seat above the conflict, power to call 
Peace like a zephyr o'er men's turbid strife ; 
Home music too, children and heroine wife, 

God gave — then gave Death's writing on the wall, 

And on the road the assassin : bade him fall 
Death-stricken at the shining crest of Life. 

And yet our tears are sweet. God bade him taste 
■ Honey and milk and manna raining down ; 

Clothed him with strength for good whose sweet renown 
Touched wind and wave to music as it passed ; 
Then crowned him thine indeed — giving at last 
Heroic suffering, the true hero's crown. 



IPSA VIRTUTE MAJOR. 

BY D. A. CASSERLY. 
[From The New York Evening Mail.] 
Not when, on Chickamauga's stricken field. 
The reeling ranks about thee fell or fled. 
But thy brave spirit, still unvanquished. 
Dared face the foe alone, untaught to yield 
And made thy single arm thy country's shield;' 
Not when the nation named thee for its head, 
And up earth's stateliest heights thy footsteps led. 
And, lo ! a king of men thou stood'st revealed, — 
Wast thou so great as on thy bed of pain, 

Garfield ! so much thy country's love and pride. 
But greatest art thou now, when on thy bier 
We drop the bitter, yet triumphant tear : 
Now thou hast proved indeed that God doth reign, 
In His own Kingdom throned by Lincoln's side. 
New York, Sept. 26, 1881. 



1 " His arrival at Thomas' head-quarters was like the reinforcement of a corps." — [Lile ol 
James A. Garfield, A. B. Barnes & Co., iSSl.] 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 97 

AT REST. 

BY HARRINGTON LODGE. 

[From The Albany Journal.] 

Dear friends ! let us stop weeping ! 
He is at rest and sleeping 
In his dear Father's keeping, 

Freed from sorrow, freed from pain ! 
now is sweetly resting 
Where there is no molesting, 
Where there is no more testing 

Of his gentle love again. 

He has passed that dread portal 
Through wiiich every mortal 
Wlio becomes celestial 

Must first pass to reach the goal. 
At the great portal, praying, 
He found his dear friends staying, 
And angels ever swaying, 

Like a magnet to its pole ! 

He now hath reached the heaven 
Where there is no more leaven 
To disturb his rest so even ; 

In his new and happy home 
Are seraphs to enlighten, 
Dear friends his joy to heighten, 
And wisdom, too, to brighten, 

What was once a sealed tome. 

If we will live as fearless 
As he, the pure and peerless, 
We, too, may become tearless 

In that blessed home above ; 
Where we again on meeting. 
And after heavenlj^ greeting. 
Will never know the fleeting 

Of this earlhborn, changing love. 



98 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



GARFIELD. 

BY W. H. ^ENABLE. 

"He •was a man." — Hamlet. 
So great was Garfield that he stood 

Above thfe royal : --not so great 
But that the poorest, lowliest, could 

His best exr.mple emulate. 
His manhood blossomed into fame. 

More than hero is a man ; 
youth, that seek'st an honored name, 

Pursue the simple course he ran. 
A faithful man, he did his best 

As school-boy and as President; 
The Holy Grail of Eight his quest; — 

His daily task a sacrament. 
Erect his statue in the mart. 

Where it may call to every mind 
How one who bravely does his part 

Shall serve himself and all mankind. 
Oct. 9, 1881. 



DEAD. 

BY KEV. AV. C. RICHARDS. 
[From The Chicago Standard.] 
Were all our prayers, then, vain — since he is dead, 
Each new-born hope of ours a painted cheat. 
While crape hangs heavily along the street. 
And, shrouding every home, a pall is spread? 
Since his great soul its shattered house has fled, 
And Death has borne away on stealthy feet. 
His life the nation prayed for — is it meet 
We bear him to the tomb with doubt and dread? 
The infidel may mock our prayers and say, — 

" Why did your God not answer you and save. 
When human skill succumbed to fell despair? " 
But taunts like this shall turn no whit away 

Our eyes from Heaven to dwell upon the grave : 
•' God's will he done," was faith's large-answered prayer! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 
TO THE MEMORY OE OUR FRIEND AND PRESIDENT. 

BY FANNIE ISAHELLE SHERRICK. 

[From The St. Louis Repul)lican.] 

A NATION mourns her dead; 
The honored dead who wakes no more — 
And sorrow like a mantle falls 

Upon her stricken head. 
The soldier sleeps — and silence reigns 

O'er all the shadowed land, 
He lies in state —while thousands pass — 

A mournful, sorrowing band. 

The flickering light is out; 
Sweet flowers strew his pathway now. 
Though shadows fall on hearts within 

And darkness reigns without. 
Strong men kneel down and children stand 

With hushed and wondering breath ; 
While hand in hand the states draw near 

To mourn his early death. 

A mother mourns her dead ; 
The loving dead, who nevermore, 
With loyal heart and kindly hand, 

Will stroke her silvered head. 
Poor mother-heart, which long agt) 

Throbbed to his baby kiss ; 
So empty now — so old and worn — 

Ah ! what a grief is this ! 

A wife calls back her dead ; 
The sacred dead, who from death's sleep 
Came back to her, and in her eyes 

His last dread sentence read. 
Sad heart ! that beats to funeral bells 

And sound of music low ; 
Whose children's sobs add pain to pain 

And lessen not her woe. 

A nation mourns her dead ; 
From shore to shore the colors fly, 
And, waving sadly, droop and lie 

Above the soldier's head. 



99 



100 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



A cross gleams in the evening sun 

As moves his funeral train, 
Past heads uncovered — hearts bowed down 

Beneath the nation's stain. 

A nation mourns her dead ; 
But o'er his grave her children meet, 
And heart to heart are joined again 

Where once dissensions led. 
O God ! if from his martyr-death 

Sweet peace should spring again, 
Then could we say, with chastened hearts. 

He hath not died in vain. 



HIS MOTHER. 

BY EMILY H. LELAND. 
[From The Wisconsin.] 

God send you cheer, O mourning one ! 

For God was kind to give to you 
This noble son, who held your love 

Through all these years so warm and true. 

And God was kind, when on your breast 

A bonny babe he smiling lay. 
To send no shadow of the doom 

For which a nation mourns to-day. 

Yet who shall comfort grief like this — 
Too deep our broken words to heed ! — 

Not swift the tears to aged eyes, 

The poor crushed heart must inward bleed. 

"I shall be with him soon ! " Dear soul ! — 
God's comfort is already yours. 

The pity is for us who lack 

The faith that through such woe endures. 

As the strong one who climbs the steep. 
Then turns and stoops with proffered hand. 

So waits your boy, while downward shines 
The radiance of the heavenly land. 
September, 1881. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 101 



BY THE TOMB. 

BY ALPHONSO A. HOPKINS. 
[From The American Rural Home, Rochester.] 
Sleep well, hero of lieroic mould! 

We bend beside thy hallowed bier, to-day, 

And on it all our costly tribute lay 
Of love and loss no tongue has ever told. 
And while to thee the mysteries unfold 

Which wait beyond us, we can only pray, 

To Him who led thee on thy bleeding way, 
That some clear light our nation may behold. 

And walk therein to higher, nobler planes. 

So shall our loss fruit into God's own gains ; 
So may the darkness that did wrap us round 
At last be radiant with a glory found 

Above our grief, and out of woe come weal 

That on thy tomb shall set the Lord's own seal 



TOLL YE THE SOLEMN BELLS. 

BY ELIZABETH Y^'VTES RICHMOND. 
[From The Inter-Ocean.] 

Toll o'er the stricken land the solemn bells, 

Along the hills and palpitating coast. 
Furl ye the flags that drape ten thousand masts 

Upon the seas, 'mong surging billows tossed. 

A i)rince of ours, of nature's regal line. 

Sleeps by the sounding surf, unwaked to-day ; 

Around him roars the funeral dirge of time. 
Old ocean's canticles, unhushed alway. 

While nations weep, or dynasties go down, 
Or whirlwinds wreck the cities of the past, 

Or tempests shiver down earth's mightiest thrones, 
Or sands o'er empires drift, tossed by the blast, 

Down by the sounding sea, with tears we lay 

The great, strong heart, so strained and overtasked, 

The wan, worn hands that would have wrought this day 
The sturdy toils for which the century asked. 



102 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Sealed is the page the hushed historian keeps, 
Silenced the records of great deeds undone ; 

Bowed are the councillors at the city gates ; 

Mournful the people, with white lips struck dumb. 

chronicler, who writcth up the years. 

Stand on the threshold with thy pen uplift ; 

His record lieth yonder, where the stars 
Of vast eternities, uncounted, drift. 
Appleton, Wis., Sept. 22, 1881. 



THE MIDNIGHT MESSAGE. 

BY ELLEN H. RCSSELL. 

[From The Troy Times.] 
In the soft September midnight, when the city lay asleep, 
And the stars their watch were keeping, and a hush was on the deep. 
There was no voice of herald, no footstep on the street, 
But we heard the midnight message where the night and morning meet. 

We were watching, we were praying, and the nation held its breath, 
For its hope lay in the balance — was it life, or was it death? 
When a horror of great darkness dropped its pall on every mind. 
For up the valley came to us the bells upon the wind. 

We had heard these bells at midnight, when they rang the New Year's birtli, 
And a song of joy and gladness floated o'er the list'ning earth ; 
They had tolled for grief and mourning, they had pealed for thanks and cheer : 
But they never tolled so slowly, and they never fell so drear. 

When the wild, wild rain is falling, he will never hear its beat; 
When the winter winds are wailing he will rest — his sleep is sweet; 
When all life's waves and billows shall rend "your hearts and mine," 
His hands are crossed forever in faith's eternal sign. 

How we loved him ! how we mourn him, Columbia's dearest son ! 

It never was so hard to say, " O God, Thy will be done." 

That great, sweet soul — that noble heart — that manhood in its glory — 

Were they ours, and have we lost them? Shall he only live in story? 

He is not dead, he is not dead! he lives within each heart, 
More lasting than the sculptor's stone, more sweet tlian poet's art : 
The simple grandeur of that life each hour its story tells : 
While memory lasts shall hallowed be the message of the bells. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



103 



LINCOLN AND GAEFIELD. 

BY O. EVEKTS. 

\ NATION mourns. Its flag is, sorrowing, furled. 
Nor faith, nor hope, nor love could save from death, 
Nor tears, nor prayers prolong the vital breath 
Of him, the foremost man of all the world. 
Why should su(;h shafts at such a mark be hurled? 
Inscrutable thy Avays, Providence ! 
And high above this plane of grovelling sense. 
Where mortals crawl and question God's intent! 
And still " God rules " — " The government 

Lives on " — as when, in yonder Capital, 
Aforetime lay a murdered President ! 
Lincoln and Garfield ! — names forever blent. 

The brightest blazoned on Columbia's scroll. 
Where " Washington " still glows with lustre permanent! 



THE NATION'S SORROW. 

BY CARRIE A. SPAULDING. 

[From The Spiiueflcld Republican.] 
Husii ! for the hour is holy in its speeding, 

A grief too great for words is over all, 
Stricken with sadness, solace all unheeding, 

Lo ! at the feet of the Unseen we fall ! 

Bow — for the stroke is heavy in its falling. 
Crushed to the earth in all its weight of woe ; 

What future terror can be more appalling — 
What darker fortune can be ours to know? 

Mourn —for the star is dim whose glorious beaming 
Shed rays of lustre all the nation o'er ! 

And while upon celestial hills 'tis gleaming, 
Wc walk in darkness on the earthly shore ! 

Ah, Garfield ! nobler than memorial stone 
Affection's tribute on thine altar laid ! 

The memory of thy glorious name alone 

Shall brighten when the last " immortelles " fade. 

Marbles may crumble, fame's applause depart. 

But thy renown is graven on the heart! 



104 THE rOETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

And now, while muffled diaim and tolling bell 
Have ceased to echo all our spirit's grieving, 

Borne tenderly by those who loved thee well, 
In the cold grave thy hallowed dust we're leavint 

We render back our treasure to the Giver, 

And catch a glimpse of angels o'er the river ! 

O Father ! In this hour of bitter weeping, 
"When far-off nations, all as mourners stand, 

Be thou our leader : in Thy holy keeping 
Preserve our fair, our Avell-beloved land. 

So shall we rise from this all-chastening rod 

And victors be, through an all-conquering God. 

Haverhill, N. H., Sept. 26, 1881. 



DEPARTED. 

BY JAMES B. KENVON. 
[From The New York Home Journal.] 

Whither no human eye can follow him. 
Nor vexing sounds from any earthly shore, 

Into a distant country, vast and dim. 
He hath departed hence forevermore. 

From human honors fleet as human breath 
To higher glories his brave soul hath fled, 

And, in the wide mysterious realms of death. 

He takes his place beside the world 's great dead. 

Unfinished lies the work he had begun — 

To cleanse the land, to heal a mighty wrong — 

But still we know, from that which he hath done. 
How masterful his spirit was and strong. 

Lo ! in the presence of death 's mystery 

Hushed are the mocking voice and bitter sneer. 

While now, through rifted clouds, at last we see 
How calm his loyal manhood shone and clear. 

So as a people that is without hope 

We cannot mourn ; for, like a beacon light, 

Illuming the dense gloom in which we grope. 
His lofty faith shines out across the night. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 105 

And though the master sleep the final sleep, 

And sounds of menace swell upon the breeze, 
Some careful hand along the troubled deep 

Shall guide the Ship of State through perilous seas. 



GAEFIELD'S GRAVE. 

BY W. E. M. 

Beside a new-made grave the nation stands, 

The North and South commingling mutual tears ; 

Across the mound tliey clasp fraternal hands, 
And bury there the hate of all the years. 

And if from out the sadly cherished dust 

There spring the flowers of confidence and love. 

Of sympathy and undivided trust, 

Will grander monument be raised above? 

Or if the sculptured marble rears its head. 
Telling the noble deeds that he has done, 
What truer words to write above the dead, 

" He died and, dying, made his people one"? 
Marietta, Ga. 



ACROSTIC. 

BY EDWARD F. HOVEY. 
[From The Alta California.] 
Joy turns to grief. A statesman wise, — 
A noble chieftain, — bravely dies. 
Millions bowed down now mourn and weep, 
Expressing love and sorrow deep. 
Sovereigns and subjects, high and low, 
Attesting grief, kind words bestow. 
Greatest of earthly honors here ; 
And now a well-won crown up there ! 
Remembered ever be his name ; 
Forever known his worth and fame. 
In lo3'al hearts from sea to sea. 
Enshrined his image e'er will be, — 
Living still, though gone before, — 
Dead, yet living evermore. 



10(i THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



OUR DEAD PEESIDENT. 

BY LOUISE V. BOYD. 
[From The Indianapolis Journal.] 
High in the heavens Jehovah hath his tlirone, 

Thick clouds and darkness are his secret jjlace, 
But tender was the voice that called his own, 

" Come to my presence and behold my face." 
Yet we are mourning, all uncomforted — 

A mighty people, pouring our lament 
On the wild autumn winds, for he is dead, 

Our chosen chief, our Christian President. 
Oh ! our good soldier, brave, and true, and tried, 
Thy country's sons, all comrades by thy side. 

Felt every pain that thou wert called to feel. 
Son, husband, father, though we think of thee 
At rest, and crowned with immortality, 

Thy God and ours alone our woe can heal. 



IN MEMOIIIAM. 

BY W. E. PABOR. 



[From The Denver Republieau.] 
We knelt before the ark of prayer, 

A nation wrapped in robes of grief; 

We cried, Oh, spare our chosen chief! 
The life of one we honor, spare ! 

In aureole of purest light 

We saw the angel of the Lord 
Beside the ai-k, with flaming sword. 

That sent its shimmer through the night. 

The sword was drawn in lifted hand. 
As with one tongue a nation spoke : — 
O angel, spare the fatal stroke, 

And leave him to a loyal land. 

His heart is whiter than the snow ; 
His soul is stainless ; touch him not. 
Till in the fulness of man's lot 

The time shall come for him to go. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 107 

Alas ! the angel would not heed ! 

With streaming eyes we Saw the sword 

Obey the mandate of the Lord ; 
No tears nor jirayers could intercede 

To stay the stroke. A nation waits 

In robes of sackcloth at a shrine 

Where love, though human, seems divine, 
While sorrow opens wide her gate. 

Dead chieftain ! on thy bier we lay 

Our last sad tribute, wet with tears, 

A token for all coming years 
Of what is in our hearts to-day. 

As generations come and go, 

Thy name, grown greater with the years, 

Will shine as suns shine in their spheres, 
With whiteness whiter than the snow. 
Abqyle Park, Denvee, Col., Sept. 26, 1881. 



GARFIELD. 

BY J. E. FOX. 

[From The Chicago Times.] 
A SORROWING world beheld the awful strife 

At Elberon, in fear, with bated breaths. 
The wrestling agony of death and life 

Is o'er. Alas ! the victory is death's. 

'Twas fitting he should die where ocean's surge 
Might bear his requiem to all lands and skies, 

And men and angels liear the swelling dirge 

Of the "great deep," mid heavenly symphonies. 

" After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well." 

Murder hath done its worst. With mournful tone 

And saddest cadence, the long-dreaded knell 
Proclaims the death of a proud nation's own. 

The patient sufferer gains a restful sleep 
At last, and peaceful, in the quiet grave. 

Yet a great people doth not cease to weep 
For one its prayers did not avail to save. 



108 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Humanity's true heart in anguish throbs 
Near to the portals of our Garfield's tomb, 

And strong men's tears and women's choking sobs 
Tell of the nation's grief and utter gloom. 

Yet C^arfield lives ! For his immortal name 

Will shine forever from historic page ; 
Ay, light the future with undying flame, 
And shed its lustre on remotest age. 
RocKroRD, III. 



TOLL THE DEATH BELL. 

BY CHARLES .T. BEATTIE. 

Toll the death boll to greet the people's ears 

With solemn sounds of unaffected woe ; 
Can nature's raindrops match a nation's tears 
That from the eyes of sorrowing millions flow? 
Furl your bright flags, 

And let the muffled drum 
Tell all the suifering land 
His hour of rest has come. 

Death strikes the ruler of a mighty state, 

Marks the proud head that wore the people's crown. 
Prostrates among his peers the good and great. 
Seizes the chief, regardless of renown. 
Close your grand marts, 

And drape your august domes, 
King Death is here 

And strikes ten million homos. 

Sorrow is brooding o'er the stricken land. 

Grief darkens every home, dims every eye ; 
From shore to shore, from centre to each strand, 
We hear the wail, and note the rising sigh ; 
The sounding minute gun, 

War's requiem o'er his bier, 
Speaks his last battle won, 
His last sad bivouac here. 
Chicago, Sept. 20, 1881. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



THE COUNTRY'S PRAYER. 

BY MINNIE B. NOYES. 

[From The Springfield Republican.] 

Music — "Dead March in Saul." 

Father, who heedest the humblest sparrow's fall, 

Hear now, we pray, our nation, sore bereft 
By tribulation's darkest night, we call — 

Blindly, thy face seek we with grief distressed. 
Grant us thy peace and teach us now to say, 

" Thy way, Lord, not ours, we know is best." 
All sounds are hushed, save lamentation low. 

The busy world throws off its daily care, 
And suppliant all before thy throne we bow, 

And pray for strength this heavy cross to bear. 
He liveth still ; while we below must wait, 
A martyr's crown shall he forever wear. 
Cease, then, all tears —we look above and pray — 

" Be ours his faith, in life or death sustained, 
O God, be near, our faltering steps to stay ! " 

The changing years his mem'ry shall retain. 
And to Columbia's sons shall every day 
Be proof indeed, he lived nor died in vain. 
Bernardston, Sept. 23, 1881. 



109 



A TRIBUTE. 

BY SAKAH J. BURKE. 

[From The New York Tribune.] 
Oh ! what avail the groans that burst 

From lips of strong men bowed? 
And what avail the tears that gush. 

As women weep aloud? 
And what avails that homes are draped 

In weeds of deepest woe. 
As though beneath each roof-tree dear 

The dead were lying low? 
Ah, only this ! — a nation find.'^ 

A comfort, sad and sweet. 
Breaking the alabaster box 
Of perfume on his feet ! 



110 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



"THE GOOD DIE NOT." 

BY LEWIS J. CIST. 

The good die not : this lieritage they leave — 
The record of a life in virtue spent ; 

For our own loss at parting, though we grieve ; 
Lives such as theirs build their own monument. 



HIS FIRST SABBATH IN HEAVEN. 

BY S. L. LITTLE. 
[From The Providence Sunday Slar.] 
How calm is the glow of this first Sabbath morn, 
Since with hearts stricken down in their grief, 
In his palm-covered coffin we laid him away — 
Our martyred illustrious chief! 

What a change since his last suffering Sabbath on earth. 

Those groans for that rapturous song 
Which only the ransomed of Jesus can know — 

The blood-washed, the glorified throng ! 

The victor in Christ over death has prevailed ! 

And, oh, how divine his reward ! 
Without one faint shadow he seeth unveiled 

The glorious face of the Lord. 

Oh, vision of visions ! the sight of that face 

Would for ages of misery atone ! 
The lovely Redeemer of Adam 's lost race — 

The conqueror of Death on His throne ! 

Were the gates left ajar as he passed to his rest? 

Were some wandering rays downward borne? 
Such a heavenly radiance seems to invest 

The skies on his first Sabbath morn. 

But, chastened and sorrowing nation, oh, learn 

The lesson our Father would give, 
From the ways that have grieved his good Spirit return, 

Repent, seek His mercy and live. 

Then for the bright light now removed from our skies, 

That has left us in darkness to mourn. 
New stars for our hope and our guidance shall rise. 
Till breaks the millennial morn. 
Providbnce, Oct. 1, 1881. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. Ill 



ON THE DEATH OF GARFIELD. 

BY MARTIN MACMASTER. 
[From The Atlanta Constitution.] 
Ah ! Garfield, our president, has left us at last; 
His sufferings are over, his sorrows are past; 
He has left us, and gone on a little before, 
To greet us, to meet us, on yon beautiful shore. 
He was ready, and waiting, to answer that call, 
Which, sooner or later, must come to us all, — 
Willing to stay, yet ready to go, 
Calmly he waited God's will for to know. 
For long, dreary weeks on his bed has he lain. 
Weary and worn with anguish and pain ; 
But meekly and calmly resigned to his lot. 
Like his Master, he bore it and murmured not. 
Though you once wore the blue, and I wore the gray, 
Garfield, we mourn thee, we miss thee to-day ; 
For a true, noble soul froih this world has sped. 
And a brother beloved lies cold and dead. 
Like a hero he lived, like a martyr he died ; 
In affliction's sore furnace full well was he tried. 
It is right, it is well, it is all for the best. 
For the Master has taken His servant to rest. 
Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 21, 1881. 



THE MARTYli'S CllOW^N. 

I$Y I-. D. COLE. 
[From The Boston Traveller.] 
'Tis well that sackcloth drapes our streets, and elegies are said, 
And solemn hours are set apart to mourn the mighty dead. 
But while I share a common grief, born not of common sin, 
I thank my God, who governs fate, that sui'Ii a man has been. 
To rise from out the lowest depths that poverty can give. 
To prove that not by things without do men most nobly live ; 
With sword unsheathed in Freedom's cause to cut oppression's cord ; 
Still listening, midst the swirl of men, to hear " Thus saith the Lord ; 
To rise to more than kingly power, with more than kingly grace, 
And, like the sun on Gibeon, still keep the zenith place ; 
With hands clasped o'er his couch of pain, to bridge deep hate's abys^ 
Might not a martyr shed his blood for such a crown as this? 



112 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



GAEFIELD. 

BY T. W. PARSONS, JR. 

We called him great ; for in every part 

He seemed colossal ; in his part and speech, 
In his large brain, and in his larger heart. 

And when upon the roll his name we saw, 

Of those who govern, then we felt secure ; 
Because we knew his reverence for the law. 



DE PKOFUNDIS. 

BY MRS. M. E. W. SHERWOOD. 

[From The Boston Traveller.] 

Not ours to ask the sad and gloomy question, 
Why evil flourishes, and good is crushed; 
Buddha is silent, Jupiter is voiceless, 
Our oracle is hushed. 

That all religions have the same intentions ; 
That temples, shrines, the same fair offerings show ; 
That all men kneel, in hours of heavy sorrow, ^ 

Is all we know. 

Obedient to the sacrificial spirit, 
Round the white oxen's throat we draw the knife ; 
Would offer up our sheaves, our flowers, our firstlings, 
For that one life ! 

O shot! that struck through every heart, rebounding, 
O grief! that rends each household in the land, 
O Death ! that winds in gloomy chain of sadness 
A weeping band — 

Was this thy message? this the nation's chrism? 
Wrote the llecording Angel on his roll 
That we must offer, as our expiation, 
That great white soul? 

Not lost, these weary days we wept and waited, 
Not all in vain this sorrow, if our loss 
Reminds us that the type of our religion 
Is but a Cross. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 113 

FUNERAL SONG. 

BY MISS ARABELLA ROOT. 

[From The Inter-Ocean.] 
Slowly and sadly bear to the tomb 

Him whom we loved so well, 
Pride of the nation veiled now in gloom 

By the dread fun'ral knell. 
Silently, tearfully, keep sacred tread, 
Bearing to rest the brave hero, now dead ; 
Tenderly, lovingly weep o'er the bier 
Holding the form of our President dear. 

Grand, noble chieftain, great and good man, 

Fond, tender husband, too ; 
Kind, loving father, righteous his plan. 

Loyal to all good and true. 
Peacefully sleeping his long, last sleep. 
Nation and family sorrow and weep ; 
Free now from sufF'ring, and resting from care, 
May we all meet him in heaven " over there." 



THE EAST TO THE WEST. 

BY BEN VAIL, JR. 

[From The Washington Republican.] 
Open thy arms, O West! Receive thy son ! 

His heart so long has yearned for thy embrace ! 
He comes to sanctify the soil whereon 

He erstwhile walked and looked into thy face. 
Thy grief is ours — with thine our tears shall blend ; 

We feel the blow and bow beneath the stroke ; 
The stricken ones who weep beside their dead 

Are ours and yours to chcrisli and defend. 

Perish the name of him whose cruel rage 
Has clothed the nation in her weeds to-day. 

And marred our second century's spotless page 
Witli stains his blood can never wash away. 

Open thy gates, O West ! Receive Ihy son ! 

Death's proudest trophy now to thee we send, 
With trembling lips we say. His will be done 

Whose watch-care compasseth the end. 



114 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



JAMES ABEAM GARFIELD. 

[From The Pilgrim Press.] 
God gave him lavishly of His best gifts : 

A rev'rent heart, on which his dear ones leaned ; 

A scholar's brain, which had large learning gleaned; 
And living speech, which gleamed with golden rifts. 
Eor what new scenes, his life the curtain shifts. 

He, rarely furnished, for the part appears : 

A hero, statesman, in our sorest years, 
From right he never falters, swerves, or drifts. 
For three glad months he bears our chiefest name : 

Two more, foul stroke ! we see him facing death, 

Tender, serene, and brave, his parting breath : 
Henceforth, the nation keeps enshrined his fame. 

Mid drooping flags, and griefs sad symbol's all, 
She solemn treads ; she bears his funeral pall. 



IN MEMORIAM — J. A. G. 

BY E. P. PARKER. 

[From Tlie Hartford Couraut.] 

In peace, at last ! amid the hush of strife 

Our ruler sleeps, secure from plaint or blame : 

The tragedy and triumpli of his life 

Blend in the splendor of unfading fame. 

Our prayers and tears, poured out like summer rain, 
Stayed not the Hand that works by pain and loss ; 

His will be done, whose love ordains again 
The bitter Cup, the Garden, and the Cross. 

Great heart; brave soul; capacious, cultured mind; 

Most gallant foe ; most gentle, generous friend; 
Scholar and soldier; statesman, of the kind 

Who purity with self-devotion blend ! — 

The true unswerving aim, the purpose high. 

The faithful, patient service, — wear their crown : 

No sacrifice that loyalty could try 

But shines, transfigured, in his bright renown. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 115 

Not less the nation's than the household loss ; 

Nor less the public than the private woe ; 
His country's children share his children's cross — 

Their tears of love and grief together flow. 

Life's work well done, life's battle bravely fought, 

And life itself poured out in duty's ways ; 
Hallowed by death what lips and life had taught, 

And name and memory wreathed with deathless praise ; — 

Thy glory, like some newly-dawning sun, 

llesplendent breaks throughout our dark cloud of fate I 

Immortal honor thou hast dearly won ! 
Nor richer thou than we, in thine estate. 

Oh, good and faithful servant! fare thee well! 

" Well done! " innumerable voices cry; 
And happier throngs our salutations swell 

With " Welcome ! " " Welcome ! " from an answering sky. 



18G5 — LINCOLN — GARFIELD — 188 1 . 

]5Y J. W. ROSS. 

Link we their names together — two 

Whose worth our tongues but feebly tell. 
Just, fearless, faithful, always true 
To Him whose will they sought to do. 

Martyred — and crowned ! 'Tis sad — 'Tis well 
Noble were both, and brave. 
Speak it by Garfield's grave. 

Ay, link these names together, when 
In future years your children ask, 
"Who were our country's greatest men? " 
Speak to them of her martyrs then. 
Greater to name would prove a task. 

Great-hearted both, and brave. 
Speak it beside this grave. 
Well-rounded lives were they, and grand 
In their completeness. God knew best 
How to dispose their days. Our land, 
Discerning now His righteous hand. 
Bows to the dust with heaving breast, 

And yields "to Him who gave" — 
Meekly — at Garfield's grave. 



Sept. 26, 1881. 



116 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

HIS EXAMPLE. 

BY ADDISON F. BROWNE. 
[From The Boston Traveller.] 

The solemn funei-al words have all been said 
And mournful bells have rang their final peal, 
But yet our nation's heart must deeply feel 

Abiding sorroAv for her chieftain dead. 

Days, weeks, and years will come and glide away, 
While tender reeollection burns with ray 

That keeps in view how well this leader led. 

And while his mighty trials make us see 
Beyond our former scope of joy and pain, 
The pure examples from his life contain 

A stately lesson that will ever be 

In sacred fervor taught and understood, 
And prove anew graves do not hold the good, 

For Garfield was the soul of manhood free ! 



ASSASSINATED! 

BY FLORENCE I. DUNCAN. 
[From The Philadelphia Press.] 
IIk dies ! and by arm so ignoble ! 

O Fate ! thy ways are mystery. 
Thy problems so insoluble. 

We are but dumb in view of thee. 
Dumb ! We may not articulate 

In choicest word, in formal phrase, 
The wond'ring grief we ne'er may state 

In lamentation's lyric lays. 
And so this strange, hard, woful cry, 

That rends its rightful way to air, 
May well precede the gentle sigh 

That Time may bring to trust and prayer. 
Time ! Take you now our grief in charge. 

To thee we trust the sad solution. 
Time may our sight and faith enlarge. 

Time only brings grief's diminution. 
O Fate ! O Time ! We who are mortal. 

Between these upper stones and nether. 
Can only hope the promised portal 

Where we shall leave ve twain together. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 117 

8LEEP ON, COMRADE OF THE SWORD!" 

BY COL. W. A. TAYLOR. 

Illustrious dead! O glorious light 

That wraps the soldier statesman's dust ! 

O broken sceptre, keen but just, 
That cleft the day out of the night ! . 

Thou art no pillar fallen prone, 

No wreck upon time's wreck-strewn shore. 
Thy name shall grow from more to more. 

For all thy work was nobly done. 

This was thy greatest : when you fell 

Before the greedy spoilsman's rage, 

You solved the problem of the age, 
And after history will tell 

How the republic rose and spoiled 

The spoilsman in his mad career, 

And wrought within this sacred year 
All that for which the nation toiled. 

noble offering on the shrine 

Of purer things and loftier days ! 

Up from the darkness of the ways 
Shall come effulgent light divine, — 

Shall come the alembic that will burn 

The greed for power, the lust for spoil, 

Crowning the worthy sons of, toil. 
And shed its brightness on thy urn. 

Here grief hath not one dark regret. 

Sorrow no bitterness of woe, 

And on thy turf the tears that flow 
Are gems in love's own beauty set. 

Strong heart that quailed not at the cry 

Of harpies in their quest for blood ; 

Brave lion, falling where you stood, 
Thy great achievements cannot die. 

() baptism red ! O sacrifice 

Of greatness for the righteous cause ! 

Truth, justice, better, purer laws — 
Thy glorious monument shall rise. 



118 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

In tliy dead face we fa.intly see 
God's purpose of the after years, 
And, watered by the nation's tears. 

The harvest of the Yet-to-be. 

O comrade ! tried on fields of fire, 
And true amid the battle's shock, 
Thy purpose, firmer than a rock. 

Shall grow the nation's one desire. 

Till thy dead face shall rise and glow, 
Like Arcturus in yon bhie sky, 
A quenchless beacon shining higli. 

To point to us the path to go. 

For her — God help her in her need — 
Who buckled on thy battle gear. 
And sent thee forth with smile and tear — 

For her each soldier's heart will bleed. 

For her — God help her while she weeps — 
AVho crowned thee witii life's proudest rays, 
When peace came with the shining days — 

Each soldier's heart a vigil keeps. 

Sleep on, O comrade of the sword ! 
O civic hero, nobly crowned ! 
Sleep till tlie last reveille sound, 

While fame and history stand guard. 



THE DEATH OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY E. P. 

[From The Denver Republican.] 
Another mournful cavalcade — 

With solenm mien, and measured tread, 
With muffled drums, and badge displayed. 

In memory of the illustrious dead ; 
While from city, town, and plain 
The cannon's peal resounds again. 

One of Columbia's noblest sons — 
He who stood foremost in the field 

To save his country from the wrongs 
Of the usurper, bade him yield. 

Ne'er to invade our hallowed soil. 

Our wealth and treasures to despoil. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 119 

A hero gone, with honors crowned ; 

* Peace to his nshes — let him rest ; 

A nation mourns ; one so renowned 

Has gone to mansions of the blest. 
A statesman, warrior, patriot fled 
To mingle with his kindred dead. 

His name will live, will treasured be — 

Shall we e'er see his like again? — 
Who swayed his sword for liberty, 

Our rights and freedom to maintain ; — 
On history's page emblazoned be, 
For unborn millions yet to see. 
Penter, Col., Oct. 1, 1S81. 



TEAKS FOR THE UNREQUITED DEAD. 

BY CHARLES L. HILDRETH. 
[From The Kew York Evening Telegr.im.] 
Tears for the unrequited dead ; 

Tears for the hapless, whom the sun 
Of fortune never shone upon; 
Tears for the weary feet that bled 
Unseen along life's thorniest ways ; 
For him whose labor earned no praise ; 
For him who garnered fruitless years ; 
Whose lowly love to man w.as given, 
And gained no smile from man or heaven 
For these be tears. 

But he whose loftier destiny 

Marked him among the throng of men 
For fortune's highest honors, then. 

Ere time had tarnished them, to die 
And leave to history a name 
Unspotted, and a martyr's fame ; 

Who in the vigor of his years 

Climbed rugged Glory's final steep, 
There made his bed, and fell asleep ; — 
He needs no tears. 



120 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

OUR PRAYER. 

BY ANDREW J. KENNEDY. 

[From The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.] 
Ay ! half-mast our starry banner ; 

Let not its folds float out on high, 
For our hearts are deep in sorrow — 

In death doth our chieftain lie. 

The dismal hour is upon us, 

The stricken nation's tears are shed, 

And the hope, that late lived in us, 
With our President is dead. 

God's ways are all past our knowing, 
But still in His goodness we trust. 

And confide to Him the keeping 
Of our martyred chieftain's dust. 

Jehovah ! give strength and comfort 
To all the patriots in our land, 

And defend our future chieftains 
From the assassin's bloody hand. 



GARFIELD. 
by e. c. pomeroy. 

[From The Buffalo Commercial Advertiser.] 
A STRICKEN nation mourns to-day 

Its grandly-fallen chief; 
The old, the young, the grave and gay 

Are bowed alike in grief; 
A solemn hush is in the air. 

And on the sober earth. 
As if all things were joined in prayer — 

And lost were joy and mirtli. 

The strange decorum of the street — 

The sound of hoof and wheel — 
Where earnest men in business meet 

To chaffer of their deal. 
Have all the same sad tale to tell 

Of sorrow's overflow — 
Of how the martyred hero fell — 

Of how we feel the blow. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 121 

Oh, now we know how weak we are ; 

God help us in this houi- ! 
As tender blade and flaming star 

Reveal Thy love and power ; 
Give us to see, in that pure light 

Tliou sheddest from above. 
How this dread lesson of Tliy might 

A lesson is of love. 

And not in vain will death have cast 

Its shadow o'er the land. 
If future years redeem the past ' 

And we united stand, — 
In firm alliance each with each 

To keep the sacred trust 
Our fathers left, by deed and speech, 

Above their hallowed dust. 

'Tis well ye gather 'round his bier 

With mourning speech and song, — 
Not soon again ye'U find his peer 

In any earthly throng; 
And grander fuitli no man hatli shown — 

If we but prove it just — 
Than this he spake with dying groan : 

" The people are my trust." 
Write out tliese words on plates of gold, 

And stamp them on each heart; 
For in their sense they plainly hold 

The sum of freedom's chart. 
The craft of kings may prop their fall 

When sceptred crowns grow dim, 
But freedom shall outlive them all 

If we arc true to him. 
Oh, could we read the lengthening scroll 

Of earth's immortal men, 
In that high court of last control 
Wliere angel scribes make up the roll 

Witli God's unerring pen, — 
We there should see, in one bright place. 

The true Shekinah flame, 
And in its midst the blazoned trace 
Of Garfield's brighter name. 
KuFFALo, Sept. 26, 1881. 



122 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



THE DEAD PRESIDENT. 

BY CHARLOTTE L. SEAVER. 
[From The Buffalo Express.] 
September 20, 1881. 
The lights are out! The guests are gone ! 

And just one little hour ago 
The room was filled witli sounds of mirth, 

Till solemnly and clear and slow 
The bell within the City Hall 

Sent forth a sudden cry of pain, 
And then a silence fell o'er all. 

As, slowly, once and once again, 
There came the measured Toll ! Toll ! Toll I 

Till twenty times the still night air 
Had throbbed and quivered 'neath the sound, 

Like some great heart in wild despair. 
Dead ! Dead ! Dead ! The sound died out, 

And lips grew still and cheeks grew pale, 
As one by one from ivied tower 

And steeple, like a long, sad wail, 
Broke forth the bells all through tlio land; 

And strong men sobbed and bowed their head, 
And trembling voices murmured low : 

" God help us now — our ruler's dead ! " 

Septembkr 26th. 
The day is almost ended now. 

And far away from here I know 
They've laid our President to rest. 

And sorrowful and sad and slow 
They'll turn away and leave him there. 

How sweet will be his sleep to-night ! 
No pain ! no weariness ! no care ! 

No tears ! no sun or moon for light. 
Because the Lamb of God is there. 

So strong, so brave 'mid fiercest pains ! 
What must it be to rest to-night 

And know his work is done. God reigns I 
The God he loved and served so well ! 

To know, as surely he must know. 
That from his death will surely spring 

The seeds his life was shed to sow — 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

The seeds of purity and truth ! 

Of Government without one stain ! 
Of honor ! Oh, God grant that at 

The harvest time no blot remain ! 



123 



J. A. G. 

BY H. S. M. 
[From The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.] 
O WAVE of liuman might and thought and art, 
Crested anon with war or simple peace ; 
Along the shore of aged centuries 
Thy power hath cast no Idnglier head and heart. 

His was the strength thou broughtest from the heights, 
Anointed with the warrior-blood of old ; 
That toward the sun in sturdy billows rolled 
A race of noble muscle-armored knights. 

O thou incarnate spirit of the West, 
AVho drank the mountain cup of hardihood. 
And learnt the lordly forest eloquence. 
And fed thy soul at Freedom's scarred breast ; 
Behold! divinely human attitude! 

Thy death become the trump of Providence ! 



THE LEADER'S PLACE. 

BY ELLA WHEELER. 

[From The Chicago Tribune.] 
PELL-mell they rushed in one mad race, 
All eager for the Leader's place. 
With muttered curse and threatening frown 
They elbowed one another down. 
The sceptred hand — the robes of state — 
They hurried on, the prize was great. 
When lo ! a hush came o'er the crowd ! 
The boldest of them paused, and, cowed, 
Looked in each other's eyes with tears 
That washed out bitter hate of years. 
The Leader's place they said, witli fear, 
Was but a waiting shroud and bier. 



124 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

THE FUNEEAL DAY. 

[From The Buffalo Express.] 
Peace ! Let the sad procession go 
While cannon boom and bells toll slow, 
, And go thou, sacred car, 

Bearing our woe afar I 

Go, darkly borne from State to State 
Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait 
To honor all they can 
The dust of this good man. 

Go, grandly borne, with such a train 
The greatest kings must die to gain. 

The just, the wise, the brave 

Attend thee to the grave. 

And there his countrymen shall come 
With memory proud, with pity dumb, 
And strangers far and near, 
For many and many a year. 



GARFIELD. 

BY B. B. 

■ [From The Cincinnati Commercial.] 

" An eagle, towering in his pride of place, 
Was, by a mousing owl, hawked at and killed. 

Rest now, afflicted one, 
Thy task of anguish-done, 
Nobly thou hast endured. 

So short thy high career. 
Without reproach or fear. 

Thy fame serene, secured, 
Will live a thousand years ; 
And read with sighs and tears, 

Thy patriotic story. 

Weep, Columbia, weep, 
Yet, in thy sorrow deep, 
Think of Garfield's glory. 
Newport, Kt. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 125 

MONDAY, SEPT. 19, 11.41 P.M. 

BY LINN BOYD PORTER. 

[From The Cambridge Chronicle.] 
Out on the midnight rang a bell, • 

Like a terrible, awful wail of woe ! 
One stroke ! On the still night air it fell ; 

We listened, afraid, for the second blow — 
Ah ! It struck again — like a knell ! 
No need to tell us our chief is dead ! 

The mighty heart has ceased to beat ; 
The noble soul to its God has sped. 

Our grief through tears is rushing fleet, 
As through deep waters glides the lead. 
Before and after the midnight hour 

Nineteen minutes the bells are tolled ; 
One for each State of sovereign power. 

And each for him, who, lying cold. 
Was of tlicm all the strength and tower. 

In every house a body lies ; 

On every heart is a weight of grief; 
We can only look at the autumn skies 

(If haply Heaven may send relief), 
AVith hot tears gushing from our eyes. 

How we all loved this prince of men ! 

And as we gather round his pall 
Will come the gentle whisper then, 

"We shall not, take him all in all, 
E'er look upon his like again ! " 



THE DEAD. 

BY CAPT. SAM WHITINO. 

Half-mast the starry flag's to-day ; 

Ye bells sound forth a funeral peal, — 
A patriot's soul has passed away 

To God — to wife, to country leal. 
Struck down by an assassin's hand ; 

For three long months confronting Death, 
The conqueror asserts his claim. 

And stops at last the feeble breath. 



126 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

His labors full success had won, 

And he had reached a station grand ; 

As statesman, soldier, patriot, none 
Excelled him in our glorious land. 

Ob, orphaned children ! weeping wife ! 

A nation's tears of sorrow fall, 
And fervent prayers to Heaven are rife 

For him, now gone beyond recall ! 

A monument we'll raise to him 

When this fresh burst of grief is o'er ; 

For time his memory ne'er sliall dim, 
But make it dearer than before. 



THE SAD MINUTE-GUN. 

BY JOHN BANVARD. 

[From The New York Mail.] 
Ah, wliy do we hear that sad detonation. 

That strikes on the ear with a sorrowful sound, 
And makes the heart beat with quick palpitation, 

As the echoes are borne o'er the waters around? 
It makes the hot tears down our pallid cheeks run, 

Wliile clouds of deep anguish gloom over the day. 
And the sound that we hear is the sad minute-gun, 

While our loved one is borne in sorrow away. 

Like cliill winter winds which sweep o'er the ocean, 

And wreck the brave bark in the tempestuous gale, 
It swells every heart with inward commotion 

As it sounds through the land a sorrowful wail. 
But it tells of a race most gloriously run. 

As his soul is borne up to perpetual day. 
And this is announced by that sad minute-gun. 

As to the dark tomb they bear Garfield away. 

Sad is the hour in death's contemplation. 

As draped in deep mourning each mansion is still, 
Chilled is the soul at that sad detonation 

Resounding aloud o'er valley and hill ; 
'Tis the wail of the nation for its brave stricken son. 

In the grave to be lain from the light of the day ; 
And a pang to the heart is that sad minute-gun, 

As to the dark tomb they bear Garfield away. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIEED. 127 

AT HIS GHAVE, BROTHERS. 

BY GEORGE G. SMITH. 

[From The Springfield Republican.] 
A Word from a Ciippled Confederate Soldier. 

As with uncovered head and flowing eyes 

By the dear form of this dead man we stand, 
We hear the still lips speak in accents loud, 

" Take each his hrother's hand." 

We hear the voice, and hearing bend us down 

In deep contrition that our bitter hate 
Has brought us so much dole, and Aveep we now 

That God's love rules us all, alas ! so late. 

But come we now from Southland, weeping, come, 
And bring our cypress from amidst our flowers, 

And come we from the North witli sprig from you 
Which on our mountain heights so proudly towers 

We lay all down upon this casket here. 

And lay with all tiie hate of bitter years. 
Then cry for pardon to the God of love. 

And clasp hands warmly as we mix our tears. 

O good, great ruler! ruling still, tliough gone. 

Thy death shall give a life to lasting love. 
Now is no North, no South, no East, no West, 

But brothers all in peace we onward move. 



AT ELBERON. 



[From The Ihirtford Timet*.] 

TiiEY took the sufferer to the sliore. 

Where he had long'd to be, 
And placed him where he might once more 

Look out upon the sea. 

The ocean-voices on the beach * 
Mi.xed witli tlie sen-bird's cry : 

Ear as his failing eye could reacii 
Rose the blue sea and skv. 



128 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

He looked in silence, long and deep ; 

Silent he turned away. 
He slept ; and from his fevered sleep 

Woke to another daj'. 

He saw no more the billows dance, 

Nor heard the sea-bird's call ; 
His eager eyes and yearning glance 
t Saw but the chamber wall. 

When night descended, still and deep, 
, With star-lit ocean airs, 

He saw beyond the sea-bird's sweep, 
A wider sea than theirs ! 



THE PRESIDENT AT KEST. 

BY RKV. CHARLES H. ROWE. 

[From The Cambridge Tribune.] 

The grave is rest; it keeps the precious dust 
Of those to whom all care and work is past. 
Who wait the resurrection of the just. 

In quiet resting places they shall lie. 
Within the shadow of the rock so high. 
Until the storm of vengeance be passed by. 

The grave is peace ; no clash of angry foes 
Disturb the dead; no sorrows, sins, or woes, 
Who sleep in long and undisturbed repose. 

In habitation peaceful now they dwell. 

And they who come and go, who-buy and sell, 

Disturb not those who stay and rest so well. 

The grave is hope ; for here the Lord has been, 
And from the dust of earth will come again, 
His chosen ones redeemed from earth and sin. 

Safe dwelling-place where none shall sigh or weep, 
Who rest in Thee in perfect peace they keep ; 
For so "He giveth His beloved sleep." 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



129 



THE PRESIDENT IS DEAD." 



BY H. N. CLEMENT. 



" The President is dead ;" 

'Twas thus the messag-e read 

On that eventfid night 

When Garticld's soul took flight. 

Garfield, whose pui'e, bright name 

So graced the scroll of fame. 

Garfield, whose noble worth 

Made higli his humble birth. 

Garfield, the child of fate. 

Our chosen Chief of State, 

So true, and good, and great — 

Victim of insane hate. 

Garfield, whose stalwart form 

Withstood the battle's storm 

At Shiloh on that day, 

"With Buell far away; 

And then on Corinth's plain, 

Where bullets fell like rain ; 

And Chickamauga's field. 

Where neither foe would yield. 

Garfield, whose strength and might 

Were always for the right. 

Garfield, our Nation's pride, 

Whv should he thus have died 

And yet that message dread : 

" The President is dead," 

Came flying through the night 

Like some dark, troubled sprite — 

Some evil bird of night, 

That fills our souls with fright. 

Alas, too well we knew 

The sombre tidings true, 

For, on that very day. 

The faithful watchers say, 

When standing near the sick 

They heard the death-watch tick. 

And saw the spectral dead 

Appear beside his bed. 

"'J\vas Uien before his face — 

His wan and pallid face — 

He held that fatal glass, 

Sure harbinger, alas, 

That death liad even now 

Reached forth and touched his brow. 

'Tis thus the spectres place 

Death's seal upon the face. 

Those spectres it is said, 

Were soldiers, long since dead — 

Soldiers who fought and died. 

In battle side l)v side : 



And with them mingled those 
Who fought and died as foes, — 
And now this phantom band 
Were comrades hand in hand. 
Foemen they were no more ; 
Their days of battle o'er. 
Thus came the mystic throng, 
With solemn chant and song. 
With martial mien and tread, 
And gathered 'round his bed, — 
'Round Garfield's weary bed. 
" Whence came these spirit braves ? ' 
From Chickamauga's graves ! 
" Why came they there that day ? ' 

To BEAR his soul AWAY ! 

For, eighteen j'cars ago, 
AVlien foeman fought with foe, 
These phantom soldiers fell 
'Mid fire and shot and shell ; 
And breathed their lives away 
Upon that self-same day. 

And when from out the night — 
That dark, ill-omened night — 
Thej' bore his soul away 
From its poor house of clay, 
A comet flamed in sight 
With dull and sickly light. 
That strange, unlucky star — 
That wanderer from afar — 
Seemed, as it crossed the sky. 
Like some ill prophecy. 

And so the mighty soul 
Of Garfield found its goal ; 
While nature's realms on high 
Gave mystic sympathy. 
And thus it ever is 
With niastcr-souls like his. 
Who gain, with fleeting breath, 
The crown — A Martyr's Death. 

" The President is dead ! " 
And with uncovered head 
The nation l)ows in grief 
Beside its fallen chief. 
In silence drops a tear 
Upon his mournful bier. 
And passes slowly- by 
In speechless sympathy. 



130 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



HYMN. 

BY KEV. W. G. HASKELL. 

[From The Lewiston Journal.] 
We drape our walls ! With saddened hearts 

We go about our daily cares ! 
Naught have availed the skilful arts ! 

Naught have availed our earnest prayers ! 

We mourn the honest one and true ; 

We mourn the man of good intent ; 
We mourn him unto whom was due 

Our noblest love — our President ! 

We mourn, God, our Garfield dead ! 

His heart is still ! His tongue is dumb ! 
Upon our stricken nation shed 

The light which shines beyond the tomb ! 

Thou reignest still ! The Government 
Still lives, to honor Man and Thee ! 

Long may it live, as thou hast meant. 
Land of the brave ; home of the free. 



HE SLEEPS. 



BY MRS. NELLIE FREW MILLER. 
[From The Pittshurgh Gazette.] 
He sleeps, but not with the slumber that breaketh 

The night in its gloom, and its dai'kness hath flown ; 
The morn in the light of its beauty awaketh, 
But in silence and darkness he still slumbers on. 

In manhood's bright bloom he has withered, 

And grief his proud spirit had clouded with gloom ; 

And the laurels in life he so lately gathered 

Have withered and faded when freshest their bloom. 

But still shall his memory fondly be nourished ; 

In the hearts of our Nation shall his virtues be cherished ; 
And though in the prime of his life he has perished, 

Their remembrance shall be as a grateful perfume. 



THE rOETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 131 

It is sad to see genius and nobleness dying 

'Ere the freshness of spirit liath wasted away, 
While the earth seemed around like a paradise lying, 

And the hope of tiie bosom too briglit for decay. 

And thus he was slain when his hopes were the fairest, 

Wiiile life only seemed like a beautiful dream, 
Surrounded with all that was richest and rarest, 

Whatever most bright to the senses may seem. 

And thus he has gone in autumn's bright morning. 

When nature in beauty and glory depart, 
And the proudest of nations is bowed down in sorrow, \ 

And hopes have all withered and deserted the heart. 

He is dead ! and the cold earth is resting above him ; 
He hears not the grief of a people that love him ; 
The tears of affection no longer can move him. 
Or awake him again to the day's joyous beam. 
Alleghany City, Penn., Sept. 30, 1S81. 



GARFIELD. 

BY C. B. BOTSFORD. 

The patriot sleeps in sacred long repose. 
And by his valiant death subdues his foes. 
Though from prayer's altar incense hourly rose. 
Ah ! who shall say that God has mocked our prayei 
Because that precious life he failed to spare? 
What mortal shall aver prolonged life would 
Have proved to all mankind the greater good? 
The world in sympathy and grief is one I 
Behold the instrument ! God's will be done. 
Lives Garfield still! — in living hearts enshrined, 
Admired and loved, a pattern for mankind. 
Unostentatious, simple, brave, and true. 
With faith in God to suffer and to do. 
Heroically he fouglit life's battle througli. 
His name is starred, with martyrs now enrolled, 
A radiant gem. witli setting pure of gold — 
To shine more bright as history sliall unfold ! 
Eternal, peaceful life he's won : and now. 
With those at one with God, wlio loyal bow. 
Immortal gloriqg wreath the victor's brow. 
Bradford, Vt., Sept. 24, 1881. 



132 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



AT KEST BY THE SEA. 



BY EDWIN DWIGHT. 



[From The Springfield Republican.] 



In this sweet autumn time 
Of the murmurous eyes, 
And a glad harvest urging 
Its sheaves, — 

And the trees growing gay 

With a leaf here and there. 
And the world all at rest 
And so fair, — 

Can it be he is dead ? 

Do we hear the bells right ? 
Sad, subdued, like a cry 
In the night ? 

Were our grief-burdened prayers 

Every zephyr that fraught. 
And our tear-misted eyes, 
All for naught. 

Though the heart of the nation. 

So proud of its prize. 
Had tenderly bid him 
Arise ? 

Yea, our beacon, that flickered 

So bravely to be. 
Has failed and gone out 
By the sea. 

And the air has grown darker, — 

We grope for a light, — 
And the earth's wet with tears 
Of this night. 

Yea, 'tis true. He, so fit 
To have led us, — oh, why 
Is he dead ? — yet none fitter 
To die ! 

Life that presaged so much, 
. To be stilled in its prime ; 
Can vyre find such again 
In all time r 



Old Ocean ! thy waters 

Since first they tossed free, 
Knew never a nobler 
Than he. 

He breathed thy salt breath, — 

All was hope by the sea, — 
And he harked to thy surf 
Yearningly, 

For again strength to battle 
The wrong and unjust, — 
Not for self, but the people, 
His trust. 

His struggle was passed 

Like thine own ebb and flow, — 
With his pulse would his words 
Come and go. 

Oh, for strength of thee. Ocean, 

To have borne him through all 
Till he smiling rose up 
From his thrall ! 

When he looked at thee, longing, 

With far, vacant gaze. 

Did a weird sense number 

His days ? 

And his strong heart grow still 
When that hour came to be, 
And his soul go forth chainless 
To thee ? 

Ah ! for him it is well. 
From his agony free. 
Tired, wasted, at rest 
By the sea. 

Yet grieve on, restless sea, 

To thy desolate strand, 
For the stricken ones left 
In this land. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



133 



A VOICE FROM NO. 1. 

the tribute of a tramp to his boyhood's companion, now mourned by 
America's millions. 

BY R. K. KERNIGHAM. 



[From The Toronto Evening News, Sept. 20.] 

This mi-rning an old gray-headed drunkard, who for years has haunted the cells, sprang 
up suddenly as he overheard the police talking of the death of Garfield. "Is Jim dead? " 
he asked. " AATiy, I knowed Jim. Him and me went to school together and used to fight 
and learn to spell at the same school. Poor Jim." The tears flowed down the cheeks of the 
miserable wretch, who started in life with the same chance as he whose death last night east 
a gloom over a whole planet. He seemed utterly broken down, and, asking for pencil and 
])aper, he penned the following uncouth tribute : — 



I'm the same age ez Garfield wuz, 

And I went to sehool with liira. 
And here I be in No. 1, 

While millions is mournin' Jim. 
I knew him bettei-'n I know you ; 

He lived next farm to us, 
But he was good as the wheat, and I 

Waz alius a worthless cuss. 

Why, I can remember Jim, 

When he driv an Erie mule, 
And I would stand on the banks and say, 

Wall, you're a thunderin' fool; 
But on he'd go like a meadow lark, 

And whistlin' a Methodist hymn, 
And here 1 be in No. 1, 

While millions is raournin' .Jim. 

1 went down, and he went up ; 

It's queer when I come to think. 
But lie would never go on a whirl, 

And he never learned to drink. 
1 tell j-ou what, there must have been 

A lot of sand in Jim, 
For here I am in No. 1, 

While millions is mournin' liini. 



Why, blame it, I remember Jim 

In rags and such, when I 
Was dressed like any dry good clerk 

And reckoned pretty fly. 
I had a chance to climb the hill, 

God never gave to Jim ; 
Yet here I am in No. 1 , 

While millions is niourniu' him. 

Why didn't they go to work and shoot 

A worthless cuss like me } 
But he, poor chap, was fit to die, 

Which isn't my case, d'ye see ? 
I wish that I was dead and gone, 

Once more along of Jim, 
But here I am in No. 1, 

While millions is mournin' him. 

MORAL. 

Because you're ragged don't be afraid. 

But alius remember .Jim, 
Stick to the right and go ahead, 

And you'll come to something like hitii. 
Keep a stift" upper lip — never get drunk. 
• Alius be strong and true, 
And you'll never be locked in No. 1, 

And millions may mourn for you. 



134 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



H O R A C E — G A R F I E L 1) 



BY DR. ABRAHAM COLES. 
[From The Newark Daily Advertiser.] 

Horace is said to have been a great favorite of the lamented Garfield. A day or two since 
a scholar, fresh from the reading of the Thirtieth Ode of the Third Book, wherein the poet, a 
privileged egotist, confidently predicts the perpetuity of his own fame (in his case remark- 
ably verified) thonght it strange that no one had noticed the peculiar applicableness of the 
verses to the late President. That they, do admit of an easy application, to some extent at 
least, is indeed quite manifest, of which the explanation is to be found in the striking similar- 
ity of the lots of the two men. Horace speaks of himself elsewhere as the child of poor 
parents, " j^auperum sanguU parentum" and here as having risen to eminence from a mean 
estate, " ex humili potens ; " and so after he had become the intimate associate and bosom 
friend of the first men of Rome, and in high favor with Augustus himself, he took no pains to 
conceal the fact of his humble birth. He w-as noted for his vigorous common-sense and his 
consummate mastery of expression. The parallel thus far is exact. But Horace was a Pagan 
and not a Christian. The only immortality he knew was an earthly immortality to be de- 
rived from his writings. Those words of the sixth line of the Ode, so powerful in their 
brevity, and which are so much more significant in the mouth of a Christian believer, would 
form an appropriate inscription for the tomb yet to be erected to Garfield — 



" XoN OsiNis Moriar!" 
CARMEN XXX. 

ExEGi monumentum save perennius, 

Rc;tjalique situ pyraiiiiduni altius ; 

Quod lion imber edax, noit Aquillo ini- 

potens 
Possit diruerc, aut innumerabilis 
Annormn series, et fucca temporutn. 
Xon omnis moriar! multa pars mei 
Yitabit Libitinani. Usque ego postera 
CrcHicam laude recens, dum Capitoliiiin 
Seandet cum tacita virgine pontifex. 
Dicar, qua violcns obstrepit Aiifidus,i 
Et qua pauper aqua Daunus agrestium 
Regnavit populorum, ex humili potens, 
Princeps yEolium carmen ad Italos 
Deduxisse modos. Sume superbiam 
Qusesitam meritis, et mihi Delphica 
Lauro cinge volens Melpomene, comam. 

1 Now Ofanto in Apulia. Horace was 
born on its banks. Daunus, a legendary 
king, ruled over the southern part of Apulia, 
as the Aufidus flowed through the western. 



A XEW TRAXSLATIOX. 
I've reared a monument, alone, 
More durable than brass or stone ; 
Whose cloudy summit is more bid 
Tlian regal height of pyramid; 
Which rains that beat and winds that lilo w 
Shall not have power to overthrow, 
Xor countless years that silent smite, 
Nor seasons in their onward Hight. 
I will not, when I yield my breath, 
Die wholly ! much escaping death. 
I will increase, my fame shall grow-, 
Be fresh in aftertimes as now, 
And wliile the silent vestal shall 
Climb with the priest the Capitol. 
I — risen from a low estate 
To be both powerful and great, 
Where swift Ofanto's waters roar, 
And Daunus reigned rude rustics o'er — 
Shall be declared and honored long 
As one who first the stream of song 
Led down from its /Eolic head. 
To run in an Italian bed. 
Put on that pride, Melpomene, 
By merit so befitting thee, 
To me propitious be alway. 
And bind my hair with Delphic bay I 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 135 



GARFIELD. 

BY PEI.EG MCFARLIN. 

[From The Middleborough Gazette.] 
The star has set ! The loved, ftimiliar star, 

Which, from the zenith, with effulgent ray, 
But now shone full, and poured its wealth afar. 

Banished the darkness, and proclaimed the day ! 
Hushed is the potent voice ! No more we hail 

The manly port that faced the shafts of war : 
Scarcely we dreamed that golden mind could fail 

Wherein was coined the nation's righteous law. 
He sleeps ! And o'er his consecrated bier 

The hearts that knelt and prayed the Lord to save. 
In spirit bow. The cypress and the tear 

Attest the world-wide love that guards his grave. 

From yon low hovel in the virgin West 

We saw him mount the toilsome steeps of Fame, 
Till Victory's light shone full upon his crest. 

And crowned, with all her stars, his goodly name. 
Though standing high on his imperial plane, 

He never blushed at thought of menial birth, 
But, sent his love through all the wards of pain. 

And sought to lift tlie toiling sons of earth. 
He was our friend; in truth we knew him well, 

Though to his hand we never pressed our own, 
How much we loved him words but vaguely tell. 

Or how his worth upon our hearts had grown. 
Struck down at noon ! We weep, and mourn him dead : 

' Hard by the scenes that marked his lowly birth 
His grave is made ; the tender prayer is said ; 

And thus his mortal charms are lost to earth. 
But, while the world shall cherisli what is pure, 

Or give its sanction to a noble thought, 
The name and fame of Garfield shall endure 

In all the triumphs which his life hath wrought. 
Nay, mourn him not, nor weep al)ove his mould ! 

The light and glory of his ample fame 
Shall gild the ages with a finer gold, 

And live while earth reveres a martyr's name '. 
South Carver, Mass. 



136 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

THE SORROW OF THE NATIONS. 

BV THOMAS MACKELLAR. 

[From The Philadelphia Times.] 

There's darkness over every land, 
The hearts of men are foiling : 
Man takes his fellow by the hand, 
In nearer brotherhood they stand, 
For all the earth is wailing. 

There's sorrow in the hut and hall; 

The bells of death are tolling : 
The sun is hidden by a pall ; 
In whelming billows, over all 

The tide of grief is rolling. 

Loved Britain's queen of grace and worth 

The proudest thrones of power — 
The millions high or low in birth — 
Yea, all the peoples of the earth 
Are one in sorrow's hour. 

'Tis not that bloody-handed war 

A nation's strength has broken ; 

No pestilence has swept the shore, 

Nor famine left in any door 

Its grim and deathly token. 

A cruel, vile, accursed blow 

The world's great soul has smitten ; 
It laid the man heroic low. 
And lines of deep and bitter woe 
On countless hearts are written. 

Up to the Majesty on high 

Unceasing prayer ascended; 
And kneeling millions wonder why 
A righteous God should let him die 

For whom their prayers contended. 

'Tis true a serpent strikes the heel, 

And man lies down to perish ; 
And swift diseases from us steal 
The loved and loving, till we feel 
This life has naught to cherish. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 187 

Yet, world of weeping! question not 

Wliatever God ordainetli : 
He cannot err, no matter wliat 
The seeming strangeness of the lot, — 

Tlie Lord Jehovah reigneth ! 



FUNERAL ODE. 



BY CHARLES G. FALL. 



Life's fitful fever's over, and he sleeps ; 

Those weary days and wasting nights are o'er; 
The nation hows its stricken head and weeps ; 

But mind and nature could endure no more. 
Around liis grave shall mourning thousands stand 

As long as men love manhood and true worth ; 
His name's a household word throughout the land 

Tliat honors high endeavor more than birth; 
While Learning mourns a lover, wiio ne'er knew 

A holier fount than her iierian spring; 
Philanthropy, a suitor ever true. 

Who brought the richest gifts that he could bring ; 
While Statesmanship stands mute with head bowed down : 

And Friendship, with religion hand in hand; 
.And Eloquence bestows her golden crown ; 

Tlie poor, the weak, and lowly of the land 
Stand 'round his bier, in sorrow to proclaim 

How nmch of worth's enshrined in Garfield's name, 
Willie queens and emperors join the wide acclaim. 

When anxious sleepers heard the midnight bell 

The sad news toll, they shudd'ring lield their breath 
And wildly listened to the funeral knell 

That said another had met Lincoln's death. 
The young recalled the story of his life, 

And courage took from his sublime endeavor. 
Brave women wept, remembering his poor wife 

And orpl'.an boys — the nation's wards forever. 
The patriot trembled lest an equal fate 

Might slay the other, praised the patient heart 
That while less Avorthy men rose in tlie State 

His time abided and bore well liis part. 



138 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

His brilliant life repeats the old, old story, 
There is no royal road that leads to glory, 
Through Fame's grand corridors and marble halls, 
Her fretted vaults and wide, resplendent walls, 
On her Parnassian heights together wander 
The minstrel Homer and Prince Alexander, 
Patrician Cffisar and love's boy Leander. 

The mother mourns her last-born ; and the wife, 
Who loved the school-boy with his ruddy face. 
And shared his fortunes through the bitter strife 

Which raised him from the cabin to the place 
That Webster longed for and that Calhoun lost, 

Must drag out life in loneliness and grief, 
Kecalling all the pain this glory cost, 

With slight remembrance that can give relief 
Except her martyred husband's love and name. 

Since God pronounced the primal curse of toil. 
Though wise men often ask. " What, what is fame? " 

Philosophers have burnt the midnight oil. 
And poets wandered through wild Fancy's realm, 

And Justice pleaded for some wretched life ; 
In storms the patriot held his country's helm. 

While some grand Hampden braves war's fiercest strife 
But what the learn'd and reverend seer thought true 

This lonely widow's heart reechoes too : 
" Shadows we arc and shadows we pursue." 



OUR PRESIDENT. 

BY C. B. BOTSFORD. 



And still ho languishes, the nation's head. 

With Christian fortitude upon his bed. 

He prostrate lies while millions raise the prayer 

That God our President beloved will spare. 

His varying pulse the nations daily feel, 

And watch, with trembling joy, the signs of weal: 

They pray for him, for his heroic wife — 

To home and country, spare, O God! his life. 

A sympathy, sincere and deep, world-wide, 

Resistless as the ocean's rising tide ! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



139 



A spectacle remarkable, unique 
And grand, — no ancient ruler could bespeak ! 
The striding world doth stop and hold his breath, 
And cries, spare him, remorseless tyrant. Death ! 
Our God grand ends from small beginnings sees ; 
Resultant causes bind his wise decrees. 
Herein man's hope, the sphere of faith and prayer. 
The Father's love excludes the child's despair. , 
Conspicuous in the nation's highest seat 
Are fortitude and resignation sweet. 
All luminous with Christian faith and hope. 
Ah ! who shall say, with unbelief profane, 
All this is not within the lawful scope 
Of Providence, and to the world's great gain ! 
Boston, Sept. 6, 1881. 



ANSWERED. 

BY C. A. L. 

[Fioiu The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.] 
We asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, even length of days forever 

and ever." 



Through the long summer days. 
Through each slow hour, 

Humbly a nation praj's, 
" Thine is the power." 

■' This life we ask of Thee, 

Rare as fine gold ;' 
Ask it unceasingly, — 

Wilt Thou withhold?" 

Deeper the shadows grow ; 

Still, still we cry, 
" Why Thou to hear so slow, — 
Canst Thou deny?" 

Lo, the dread death-blow falls, 

() stricken — bowed, 
List to a voice which calls 

E'en from the cloud ! 
Sept. 20, 1881. 



" iSTot years of days and nights 

Mid earth's dark strife. 
But, on the sunlit heights, 

Fulness of life." 

Ended, mortality, 

(!^are, toil, and pain ; 
This the reality, — 

Losing to gain. 

Stand not in human pride 

Prayerlcss and dumb ; 
Say not, " In vain we cried ; " 

Answer is come. 

Say not, " Breath vainly spent, — 

Death and tlie clod ; " 
Say, " A bright spirit went 

Straight to its God ! " 



' I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of 
Ophir. — /». xiii. 12. 



140 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

ELBERON. 

BY GEORGE FRANCIS DAWSON. 

The wounded chief supinely lay, 
Worn out with pains, and ashen gray. 
What mocks his weary eyes each day? 
The deadly calm at Elberon. 

O stifling calm ! furnace air ! 
Despite the kindest, tenderest care 
And hopeful-seeming round him there, 
A deep gloom rests on Elberon. 

" Blow, healthful breezes ! Fresh winds, blow ! 
The nation prays — " Blow high, blow low ; 
Give but a chance for hope to grow, 

And lift the pall from Elberon ! " 

Two nations pray ; all England's race. 
The past forgotten, now embrace, 
And supplicate that, of God's grace. 

This cup shall pass from Elberon. 

The healthful wind responsive blows. 
The cooling rain in torrent flows, 
The anxious face more hopeful grows. 
With stiff sea-breeze at Elberon. 

The ocean waves swell strong and high. 
The sullen mists are all blown by, 
A bow of promise spans the sky — 

God's sun smiles fair on Elberon. 

Days come and go ; the rosy morn 
Now mocks that frame by anguish torn — 
Those deadly pangs so nobly borne — 
Thy breeze avails not, Elberon ! 

Gethsemane's blood-sweat and pain 
And prayer and tears were all in vain ; 
We shall not see our chief again — 
A sigh breathes over Elberon. 

They tell us " Hope is not yet dead" — 
But while they speak the shadows dread 
Of Azrael's wings are widely spread 
Above the cot at Elberon ! 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 141 

O worn-out hero ! tired chief! 
Death gently comes and gives relief, 
And all the world is filled with grief — 
Toll, midnight hells of Elberon ! 

Poor, aged mother — wailing sore 
In far Ohio, him she bore — 
God's peace to thee ! 'Twill soon be o'er — 
"God's will" is " done " at Elberon. 

And thou, stricken wife, art seen 
Upheld as wife hath rarely been ! 
Sweet words are those from England's Queen : 
" God comfort you," at Elberon. 

God comfort all ! The pulseless clay 
A weeping people bears away — 
To wait tiie Resurrection Day — 

Far, far away from Elberon. 

Tlie soul hath left the lifeless clod, 
Upborne by angels — Ichabod ! — 
From mortal arms to arms of God, 
O'er wrinkled sea at Elberon. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

BY J. W. 

[From The London Grapliic] 
Souls pure and strong from God still wing their flight 

And dwell among us for a little space ; 

Whoso loves truth may in their beauty trace 
The semblance of the everlasting light; 
Too soon the beam of truth is quenched in night, 

The nations in their shame their gaze abase. 

Mourning that men should scorn the Heaven-sent grace. 
And set all good below their narrow spite. 
Tlie great may perish, but their name endures, 

A mountain beacon; by whose flame we find 

Tlie path tiiat leads us high above the plain. 
So Garfield to Columbia's sons assures 

A liigh ensample of the equal mind. 

As modest in success, as brave in pain. 



142 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

SORROW. — AN ACROSTIC. 

BY JOHN SAVART. 

[From The Washington Gazette.] 

Leave her great grief to speak in speechless stone ! 
Unless the painter, with an eye to form, 
Can put the rainbow under feet in storm 
Rolling far off, and from the clouds o'erblown, 
Eminent Sorrow to the stars alone 
Tending, for infinite rest. The mournful grace 
Ingraved in still thoughts on her starlit face, 
Around her clasps the solemn midnight zone. 

Remembrance shadows her, and evermore 
Under the drooping lids a trace of tears 
Drawn in dim circle round the eye appears 
Of the wan watcher in the Mount, as o'er- 
Looking the earth to the far-shining shore. 
Pending the frail thread of her spun-out years, 
Her heart dreads not of Destiny the shears. 

Gone is her sun and moon that shone before. 

Afar the shining heights grow dark for life 

Remembered only as a gracious boon. 

Forever garnered from the fields of strife 

Into God's garner, rest his works at noon. 

Endure thy lot a little longer. Soon, 

Lady of sorrow ! in a better clime 

Death shall ring out thy heavenly marriage chime. 



OUR FALLEN CHIEF. 

BY CLARA O. CASSELL. 

[From The Chicago Tribune.] 
Sleep, sweetly sleep ! thou great and just ! 
Earth to earth, and dust to dust ! 
Nations weep thy loss to feel, 
Loved ones 'round thy presence kneel, 
All, midst grief too great to tell. 
Mourn thy loss — beloved so well — 
Farewell, O great Chief, farewell! 
On earth no more with us thou'lt dwell- 



THE rOETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 143 

Thou'rt gone forever from our sight, 
Whose Avill was ever to do right : 
Revered by all, our grief is great; 
Thy loss is felt in every State ; 
Loving ones o'er thee will weep, 
Who art not dead, but just asleep ; 
We'll miss thee from thy earthly home, 
The angels claimed thee for their own. 
Deebton, III. 



WHAT CAN WE DO BUT WEEP? 

BY GEORGE C. WOOLLARD. 

[From The Cincinnati Gazette.] 
Why thus are nations thrilled? Why swimming eyes 
And vengeful hearts proclaiming grief and scorn? 

Columbia bore a brood of ingrate sons, 
That made of her a second Lear ; that made 
Her trutli a lie, her lilierty a tyranny ; 
And her glorious, well-appointed home, 
A haunt of bribed and perjured Infamy. 

At length she bore a goodly seeming child, 
A second Moses. Him site nursed and tended ; 
And in due course brouglit-up to Man's estate : 
Not man merely in form, but really man. 

On Garfield's purposed arm Columbia leaned ; 
And, while her ingrate sons, among themselves. 
For bitter strife could not divide their spoils. 
She bade liim gird himself to loose her chains. 
Oh, what her joy ! Oh, how her great heart beat. 
When he had manliness to stand his mother by ! 

" Now let my soul be comforted ! My land 
Be purified ; and let sweet Peace and Rest 
Bless all my borders." Thus she said ; and thus 
Would it have fared, but that the wolfish horde 
Found means to glut their vengeance. 
The stealthy jackal, that hungers for the scraps 
That lordlier tigers leave, struck deep his fangs 
Into Columbia's savior. He fell ; .and then 
Fell all true men in sympathy. 
What can we do but weep? 



144 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

IN MEMORIAM. 

BY GARLAND TURELL. 
[From The Cleveland Plain Dealer.] 
On yonder shore the willows sigh, 

The winds blow soft, the birds sing low, 
And o'er his grave the swallows fly, 
And kiss the turf where lilies grow 
And blossoms blow. 
On yonder shore the moonlight falls, 

And stars look down with tender eyes ; 
From leafy groves the cuckoo calls — 
In softer tones her mate replies 
In glad surprise. 
On yonder shore a hero sleeps, 

Where Autumn flings her golden sheaves ; 
And Nature o'er his slumber weeps 
With dew-drops on the dying leaves, 
And ever grieves. 
Blow, waiting winds ! Blow high, blow low, 

And tell the waves what ye deplore ; 
And sing, ye waters, as ye flow, 

" He sleeps, he sleeps on yonder shore 
Forevermore." 



STUANGULATUS PRO REPUBLICA. 

[From The Christ Church Register.] 
The golden honors of a nation's day 
Do bud, and bloom, and fade, and pass away. 
Some leave a record on the scroll of Time ; 
Some are engrossed upon the throne sublime. 
Great deeds of mighty men are soon forgot, 
Or paraphrased by hands that knew them not. 
Shall we, then, give posterity the. claim 
To write an eulogy for our great name? 
Shall generations yet unborn gainsay 
The grandeur of tlie name we mourn to-day? 
We pray it be not so ; but every pen. 
How great its weakness or how deartii its ken, 
Unite to tell of him who grandly stood 
The nation's martyr for tlie nation's good. 



THE POETS' TRIBUfES TO GARFIELD. 145 



DECKED FOR THE GRAVE. 

BY T. G. LA MOILLE. 
[From The Cleveland Plain Dealer.] 
We deck our hero for the tomb, 

And heap his bier with flowers, 
While his grand spirit through the gloom 

Finds amaranthine bowers. 
The favored State that gave him birth 

Receives her martyred son ; 
Carve deep the stone that speaks his worth. 

And tells the prize Death won. 
Let forge-flames die ! Let mill-wheels pause ! 

Let Traffic stay her hand ! 
Make bare your brow I twine sable gauze ! 

Pray ye through all the land ! 

Pray for his stricken family ! 

Lament our nation's woe ! 
We have the whole world's sympathy : 

A true man lieth low. 
We deck our Garfield for the grave, 

And hide his pall with flowers ; 
His life — and love worked hard to save — 

Leaves " influence sweet " for ours. 



OUR MARTYRED PRESIDENT. 

BY JOHN M. IVES. 

[From The Lockport Daily Uniou.] 
Dead, by the sounding sea ! 

Dead, with his laurels green ! 
The midnight bell, with solemn knell. 

Sobs out — No dream ! — No dream I 
A nation's pride in dust low lies — 
Oh, solemn, sacred sacrifice ! 

No more in pain, but well ; 

Healed, made whole and clean ; 
A noble soul, on martyr roll. 

Welcomed by hands unseen 
To kingdoms fiideless, peaceful, blest ; 
To Lincoln's side, to Heaven's sweet rest. 



146 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

For her who sits in grief 

A nation's prayers nprise ; 
So brave and good, alone she stood 

And battled death with steadfast eyes. 
O God, give strength in this dark hour, 
Come to that soul Avith precious power ! 

Earth's fleeting fame, how poor ; 
Eternal gain, how sure ! 
In place of Joy, sad Sorrow walked ; 
With trusting Hope the Spectre stalked ; 
And grief, and gloom, and prayers and tears, 
Alternate with a people's fears, 
Arose and fell through summer days, 
Until, mid sad September's haze. 
The message comes, and we are dumb. 
LocKPOKT, N.Y., Sept. 20, 1881. 



"GOD BLESS THEM." 

BY MRS. K. T. HOUSH. 

[From The Louisville Commercial.] 
The church bell was calling the hour of prayer. 
And its notes peeled through the casement, wliere 
Our stricken President lay. 

" They are praying for me? " as he turned his head, 
"All the people are praying for you." — " God hless them ! " he said. 



In every home, by the sea or the land. 

Had gone up the cry from the waiting band, — 

" God save the President! " But from him no sigh. 

Only " God bless them!" — " They'll not let the old soldier die." 

Were the prayers that rose from the myriad throng. 
But as incense to lift the soul so strong 
Out from the clay — away from the strife — 
Upward to God, and Heaven, and Life — 

That deeper than night lies a gloom o'er the earth? 
For the bravest and truest that ever had birth. 
Comes to its bosom for shelter and rest. 
Gently hold him, oh, mother, to thy loving breast I 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 147 

Fall the sod lightly, tenderly! We bring to thee, 
A treasure most cherished! Ah, never to be 
Prayed for again ! All the watching is o'er ! 
Safe from all pain, from all harm, evermore! 

The prayers for him ended : but one prayer still breathes on, 
Though the lips are as dust, and tlieir spirit is gone, 
'Tis tlie prayer that he whispered. — " Ood bless them ! " he said, 
" God bless them!" God's blessing can never be dead. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



BY AV. J. 11. HOG AN. 
[From The Chicago Tribune.] 
This was a MAN, whose like we seldom view, — 
A Christian knight, brave, mild, and grandly true. 
Under the banner of the Cross he fought. 
And shamed it not by word or acted thought. 
He learned long since his passions to subdue. 
And, humbly kneeling, for more light to sue. 
And light was given to illume the mind, 
Light, whose bright beams into the tomb hath shined. 
Since He who is the Light was there enshrined. 
He learned to die, and as his Master rose, 
With Him he triumphs o'er the last of foes. 
To Judah's Lion, ever gracious Lord, 
He now hath gone, to meet his just reward. 
Mourn we his loss, our honored, gallant chief, 
Not only in habiliments of grief, 
With broken hearts that feel unuttered woe. 
We know a sorrow that surpasseth show, — 
Strong men and tender women sadly weep, 
And little children from their sports do creep, 
And add their tears, limpid as angels shed, 
Drops worthy of him, the illustrious dead. 
Pure was his life and honorably spent, 
He wisely used the talent he was lent ; 
He need not strive the Master's eye to shun, 
For He shall greet him with the words, Well done ! 
Plant at his liead the green acacia tree, 
As fadeless as his memory shall be : 
Bright emblem of the life succeeding this, 
Where souls immortal dwell in endless bliss. 
Elhurst, III., Sept. 19, 1881. 



148 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



HIS VICTORY 

BY ANNIE D. DARLING. 

[From The Boston Transcript.] 
Though on the waiting hush of midnight lay 

The burden that the solemn bells have tolled — 
Tiiough hearts throbbed quick, as griefs imperious sway 

Crushed fluttering hopes, and onward swifter rolled — 
Though dark despair lay ambushed in that night, 

When Death's white silence fell on conflict sore — 
E'en though the taper trembling Faith upholds 

With fllck'ring ray makes deeper sorrow's gloom. 
Shall we not read aright, and love the more. 

Both God and man, and in our martyr's doom 
See a great purpose — an example bright 

For coming ages? But for pain's sharp fire 
That purified his gold, the nation's cry 

For help, that all our pleading prayer enfolds. 
We should have failed to reach the best desire — 
And so our share in this, God's victory. 



REST. 

BY MRS. VIRGINIA DIMITRY RUTH. 

[From The New Orleans Democrat.] 
Speak low ! The out-spent heart is pulseless now ! 

No room save for vast pity's might ; 
Death's signet lies upon the strong, white brow ; 

The hero cliief rests — conquered in the fight. 

Slain, in the hour of his highest trust. 

His work undone — untold forever more ; 
While Freedom weeps above his coffined dust, 

Two nations mourn his end from shore to shore. 
thou, who most need'st bear this searching blow, 

Lift up thy soul to the eternal shrine ; 
Fate comes not, to tliy home, a bitter foe ; 

God will not fail to watch o'er thee and thine. 
And he, who passes from the gaze of all. 

Leaves of his life a record grand and fair ! 
Borne to his rest with drum-beat and with pall, 

His memory shall be a people's care. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 149 



IN MEMORIAM. 

BY C. B. SCHLIE. 

[From The Cmcinnati Enquirer.] 

Cease, stricken country, in tliy daily toil, 
And let the merchant's busy hum he hushed ; 

Rest on your ploughs, ye servants of the soil, 
E'er with the brown of honest labor flushed. 

For Death — grim lover of a shining mark — 
Has lowered his pinions o'er a nation's head ; 

Like thief at night he came, and in the dark 
Went forth the dreaded whisper : " He is dead ! ' 

Ah ! toll the bells, and let their muffled voice 
Chime with the mournful throbbing of our hearts ! 

Deep runs our grief; lost is a nation's choice ; 
And through our breast a nameless sorrow starts. 

Ah, mourn thy loss, Columbia ! He was great 
In all those virtues that in man abide ; 

Adored at home, high honored in his State — 
The nation's ruler, but the people's pride ! 

Peace to thy ashes, suffering martyr, peace ! 

Thy race of troubles, joys, and griefs is run ; 
Rest on thy laurels, rest, dear soul, at ease, 

Rest from thy labors — well and nobly done. 

Sleep the long sleep that waits tlie brighter day, 
And gives surcease from sorrow, grief, and woes ' 

Sleep with the just, where Mercy holds her sway, 
And Virtue to her crown eternal goes. 

Sad are our hearts; ah, soon thy well-known form 
Will rest in mother earth — thy dust to dust ; 

Thy voice no more will guide us in the storm. 
Nor cheer the stricken people — late thy trust ! 

But in our liearts immortal thou shalt be, 

And fresh and green thy memory with us live : 

Thine all the homage of a nation be, 

Thine all the love a people loved can give : 



150 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

A TIDE. 

BY KATHERINE HANSON AUSTIN. 

[From The Providence Journal.] 

" The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 

Isaiah, xi. 9. 

Fkom heart to heart a solemn -surge 

Has blessed a hemisphere. 
Its waves are throbbing with a dirge 

The farthest isles can hear. 
Oh, prophet-heart of long ago 

That yearned for tides of good, 
To-day, we, too, prophetic know 

AVhat meaneth brotherhood. 
Can e'er this tender flood subside 

And leave a desert plain? 
Not such its ebb. Still higher tide 

Foresee our love and pain. 



THE LAST VICTORY. 

BY ESTHER BERNON CARPENTER. 

[From The Providence Journal.] 
O THOU, the loved, lamented dead ! 
Not vainly on thy sacred head 
The chrism-drops of woe were shed \ 
By the dear life-blood's ruddy rain ; 
By the dread ministry of pain ; 
By the long chafing of the chain ; 
By the keen pang of hope denied; 
By love and longing crucified ; 
By the last ebbing of life's tide ; — 
We praise Thee, Lord of life and death, 
God of our prayers, God of our faith, 
That Thou hast lent frail mortal breath, 
A heart so true, a soul so tried, 
Care, strife, and anguish vainly vied 
To quell the spirit's hero-pride. 
Life's rugged labors bravely learned ; 
Life's dearer trusts right nobly earned ; 
Life's triumphs on his 'scutcheon burned. 
Oh ! what for him hadst Thou in store? 
The soldier's, statesman's meed he bore ; 
Lacked he vet aught of honor's lore? 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 151 

Lo ! lie the strife had yet to see 
With pain, with woe, with agony. 
Came he not forth in victory? 

Sliall not, O God, thi* martyr-breatli. 
E'en as Thy sure word witnesseth. 
Deny the victory to Deatli? 

Guide Thou our hearts ; oh, set us free 
From doubts and fears ; give us to see 
This last, sublimest victory ! 
Wakefield, R.I. 



VANITY OF LIFE. 
A PARAPHRASE. 

BY JOHN SAVARY. 

[From The Wasliiagton Gazette.] 

Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, 

That do with thy might ; 
For there is no work and no wisdom 

In the grave, and no light. 
With the living, we know, there is hope ; 

But he who doth fare 
To the dim under-world is forgotten, — 

No knowledge is there. 

Not the race to the swift, the battle 

Is not to the strong; 
Not bread to the wise, to the knowing 

Do riches belong. 
How the best of this world and the basest 

Are yoked for all time, 
In a marriage of fate, or of chance. 

By folly of crime ! 
We live in a world strangely solemn 

Of spirit and sense ; 
No man knows the time of his going, 

Nor whither, nor whence. 
As I looked on the wasted remains 

Of the friend of my youth, 
J mused of him somewhere unchanged as 

Our Garfield, in truth ! 



152 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Most truly to him was the light sweet, 

And pleasant the sun ; 
He rejoiced in the wife of his youth, 

In honors hard won. 
He stood in the noontide of glory. 

As raised to a throne ; 
Then dropt like a star from the zenith, 

At midnight, alone. 

Kemember, my son, thy Creator, 

In the days of thy youth ; 
Ere the evil days, and the years 

Draw nigh thee, in truth. 
Ere the sun, and the moon, and the stars, 

In time become dark ; 
As the lamp of the spirit in man 

Grows dimmer, a spark. 

In the day when the windows are darkened 

To those who look out ; 
When the beam of long life to the poiser 

Hangs trembling in doubt : 
When the locust at length is a burden. 

And terrors ally ; 
For as the tree falls, be admonished. 

Henceforth it must lie. 

When he looks to behold the return 

Of clouds after rain ; 
When the lining of silver is sable, 

And pleasure is pain ; 
When the daughter of song and of music 

By eld are brought low : 
Man goes to his long home, and the mourners 

About the streets go. 

Or the silver cord loose, or the golden 

Bowl break where it fell ; 
Or the pitcher be broke at the fountain, 

Or Avheel at the well ; 
Shall return to the earth as it was. 

The body to dust ; 
And the spirit return unto God, 

The abode of the just. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



153 



AT THE WINDOW. 

Elberon, JST.J., Sept. 13 and Sept. 20, 1S81. 

BT REV. JOSEPH A. ELY. 



Beside the window looking o'er the sea 
He lay, on whom the people's heart was set 

As never yet 
The hearts of millions in the mystery 
Of love and longing to one heart were hound; 

Encompassing him 'round 
With ceaseless vigil, till each whispered word 

The wide world heard, 
And every weary groan 

Was echoed hy a nation's sjnnpathizing 
moan. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 
He lay, in that unequal fight with death ; 

And everj' breath 
That hlew aci-oss his couch we prayed might 

be 
A minister of strength to him again 

And victory over pain, 
As in his heart he felt anew the joy 

That as a hoy 
Was his, when on his dreams 
The far-off ocean rose to tempt him with its 
gleams. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 
He lay, and heard the restless billows roar 

Along the shore ; 
And far aci'oss the waves, where silently 
The distant waters stretched, his eager eye 

Sought the encircling sky. 
Or lingered where with snowy wings out- 
spread 

The swift ships sped. 
Nor knew whose longing gaze 
Was following them, unseen, upon their de- 
vious ways. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 

He lay, but uttered not what thoughts awoke. 

What voices spoke. 
Through those days shadowed by eternity. 
Within his struggling heart. Yet as a star 

In silence from afar 
Sheds o'er the heaving deep that lies below 

Its tranquil glow. 
So on his troubled breast 
The light of some far realm of quiet seemed 
to rest. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 
He lay, nor knew that all the world was 
bright 
With that soft light 
Of love and courage, strength and purity. 



That from his chamber with such radiance 
streams 
To cast its cheering beams 
O'er every sufferer's path and show the way 

Through night to day. 
And 'mid the wrecks of earth 
Disclose the budding honors of immortal 
birth. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 
He lay, and felt anew each earthly bond 

And every fond 
Affection of his home more tenderly 
Because so soon to part. And all his hope 

Grew wider in its scope 
At that fell touch which turned it all to dust, 

And yet in trust 
He yielded to his doom 

And with unfaltering step went downward 
to the tomb. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 

He lay, eyes closed and hand upon the breast. 

At last at rest. 
Without, the changeless ocean ceaselessly 
Sobbed on the beach, but not for him its wail ; 

His honors cannot fail; 
The stars of earthly fame that burn for him 

Can ne'er grow dim : 
For us the mournful cry 
Who seek in vain below that which has passed 
on high. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 
He lies no more ; to-day with loving hand, 

Far from the strand, 
Amid a nation's grief his form will be 
Laid in its grave; but his heroic soul, 

So fashioned to control. 
Enthroned above among the eternal spheres. 

Through distant years, 
Ruling with gentle sway. 
Shall guide the land he loved upon its onward 
way. 

Beside the window looking o'er the sea 

He still shall lie, wearing his sorrow's crown, 

And gazing down. 
As from pure realms of light, with vision 

free. 
Across the troubled waves of human life 

And all its bitter strife. 
The noise of faction at his feet shall cease, 

Awed into peace. 
And purified by pain 

The stricken nation from his death new life 
shall gain. 



154 THE FOETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



HEALING SYMPATHY. 

BY JOHN SAVARY. 

How hanl, in health, to be struck down and lie 
All weary days and nights on bed of pain ! 
Harder for him of the large, active brain, 
And social nature ; yet, with quiet eye 
Turned on the resting ocean and the sky 
He hath medicinal aid, and not in vain, 
From singing leaves and plash of silver rain, 
Soothed by low winds and waters' lullaby. 

Around bis bed good angels watch and wait. 
And many a king and many a potentate 
Sends kindly message from beyond the sea. 
And his own people will not let him be 
Out of their arms of love, God! how deep 
The breathless vigil which the land doth keep ! 



ASSASSINATED. 



BY JOHN SAVARY. 



Was it for this, dear friend, that you had won 
By toilsome steps your way to place and power? 
For this you climbed above the clouds that lower 

With lurid tempest in the rising sun 

Of lawful sway, and wide dominion? 

And when you stood at the consummate flower 
Of all your greatness, in an evil hour. 

The shot was fired, the awful deed was done ! 

Esteem thou hadst before, O steadfast soul. 
But now thou hast thy people's love in fee. 

Cold love is kindled to a burning coal 
In living heat of loyalty to thee. 

And if the people's prayer to God on high 

Can aught avail, dear friend, you shall not die I 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 155 



GOOD OUT OF EVIL. 

BY JOHN SAVARY. 

How many and how great concerns of State 
Lie at the mercy of the meanest things ! 
This man the peer of presidents and kings, 

Nay, first among them, passed through danger's gate 

In war unscathed, and perils out of date, 
To meet a fool whose pistol-shot yet rings 
Around the world, and at mere greatness flings 

The cruel sneer of destiny or fate ! 

Yet hath he made the fool fanatic foil 
To valor, patience, nobleness, and wit ! 
Nor had the world known but because of it 

What virtues grow in sutFering's sacred soil. 
That shot made stream with sacred pity's well, 
The ground of unity in which we dwell. 



AFTER THE TRAGEDY OF JULY SECOND. 

BY JOHN SAVARY. 

Excitement? no; but absolute surprise : . 

Astonishment that struck through all a hush 
Of grim expectancy whose shadow lies 

On men like standing wood before the rush 
Of roaring wind with rain and darkness, all 

Suddenly upon the people a great calm 
Of perfect horror settled like a pall. 

Such calms precede a temi)est, and forbode 

The lightning's flash and the deep thunder's roll. 
And had there been a demagogue to goad 

The waiting populace, the dark rising soul 
Of ignorant " thunderheads " heaved up for warm 

Vengeance at bloody work — he might have shook 
From turret to foundation stone the form 

Of stable government; — but there was no storm. 



156 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



UNDER THE DOME. 

BY JOHN SAVARY. 

I SAW the last scene of his triumph. Well, 
By all his greatness gone in that eclipse, 
By doom of dai'kness on his brow and lips : 

He lay, like Caasar, at the Capitol, — 

The fallen Caesar of our Western Rome 
Under the dome. 

Slain by no Brutus, but a fiendish fool. 

AVhat toys are men, mere playthings of their fate ! 

How little seems all that which we call great ! 
He gathers here his pupils in that school 
Of his hushed eloquence, a claspt mighty tome 
Under the dome. 

No more shall wander round his kindly glance. 
Nor evermore his voice in strong debate 
Shall guide and guard the councils of the State. 

No more his forehead, in its broad expanse. 

Shall lift itself in that sky-lighted home 
Under the dome. 

All day and night the great procession pours 
Through the wide-leaved and open Capitol gate. 
To the rotunda, where he lies in state. 
On yet the billowy heads through corridors 
Wander and waver, like the ocean's foam. 
Under the dome. 

But,- hush! who comes with footsteps far away 
Sounding in silence like a hollow knell. 
With that bowed look of grief unutterable, 

And wrapt in widow's weed, a palmer gray, 

Standing at last by her dead lord alone. 
Under the dome. 

Draw close the veil around that last sad scene. 

Her sun gone down, no morn henceforth shall rise. 
Not heavy, dark with tears in those dim eyes 
That hardly see the gift of England's Queen, 
And that pale, patient dove o'erbrooding loam 
Under the dome. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 157 

FIFTY MILLION HEARTS HAVE BLED TO-NIGHT. 

BY W. E. H. 

[From The College Student.] 

Oh, tell us not our hero's dead ! 

That death the nation's bloom has blighted ! 
The trembling anguish, pain unsaid, 

Hang silent on the doubting breath : 
While fifty million hearts have bled to-night ! 

The dream of health must fade to death, 
And hearts must bleed that held high hope ; 

Upon the air there's holy breath, 

The troubled souls' submissive prayer. 

For fifty million hearts have bled to-night! 

Our hero's dead ! The voice of woe, 

Where angels paused to see men pray. 
Now starts the soul's most tender flow ; 

And this is love when strong men weep : 
For fifty million hearts have bled to-night ! 

He came to bless the bridal-flower 

When Man and Truth were wed for aye ; 
He bore of wortli the magic power, 

The love within his soul so great, 
That fifty millions hearts have bled to-night ! 

Sad, sad the night, dark breaks the morrow, 

To see repentance make its wa}" ! 
The curse is won, deep burns the sorrow, 

The bitter fruit our sin must bear ; 
Though fifty million hearts have bled to-night ! 

Our nation's weakness laid him low. 

Him whom the world had learned to love ; 

He fell beneath the hellish blow. 
And fostered lust has dug the grave ; 

Yet fifty million hearts have bled to-night! 

The pang has come. 'Tis holy ground 

Where men shall kneel to kiss the rod ; 
In softer eyes new light is found ; 

Pure love is won from pardoned sin ; 
For fifty million hearts have bled to-night I 



158 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

Rest, rest, Thou Loved One of the brave ! 

Gently rest in the souls of men ! 
Our tears shall sanctify thy grave, 

And hearts on hearts record thy name : 
Aye, fifty million hearts have bled to-night ! 



"GOD REIGNS!" 

BY WALTER KIEFFER. 

[From The Philadelphia Press.] 
To-day a nation is in tears. 

Unnumbered prayers ascend 
To Him whom all the world reveres, — 

The nation's Chieftain, Friend. 
From bell-towers over all the land 

The solemn toll is heard. 
And fifty million people stand 

With souls profoundly stirred. 

Far in the West a stricken host 

Bend o'er an open grave, — 
The grave of him whose truest boast 

Was to be pure and brave. 
Forever live on Memory's page 

The sorrows of this day ! 
Time may perhaps the grief assuage — 

We can but wait and pray. 

And when long years have rolled around, 

The prattling child of Now 
Will, at this patriot's shrine, be found 

Renewing there his vow, 
That, long as life itself endure, 

His study and his aim 
Will be to live as true and pure 

As he who won such fame. 

As soldier, statesman, patriot, man, 

Garfield will ever live ! 
Though his life was a narrow span, 

He gave all man could give ! 
He gave his life for Freedom's cause. 

In battling for the right ; 
In struggling to maintain the laws, 

Fell in the glorious fight. 



THE rOETS' TRIBUTES TO 'GARFIELD. loi) 

God bless this day — this sacred day — 

With useful lessons fraught ; 
Bless it to those who think and pray — 

To those who will be taught ; 
For Garfield speaks from out the grave, 

Speaks to a wandering race, 
He tells them to be good and brave. 

And every duty face ! 
He tells them, too, with angel voice, 
. " God reigns ! " and then he gives 
The words that make the land rejoice — 

" The government still lives ! " 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

BY ARTHUR WILKINSON BRICK.' 

He began life as a canal boy. 

With scarcely a cent to his name, 
But by virtue and manly honor 

He rose to distinction and fame. 
He was blessed with a Christian mother. 

Who labored, with all her might, 
To teach him to hate all evil, 

To pray, and to love to do right. 
In the war of the great rebellion 

He rose to a General's rank ; 
His mother's teachings he never forgot. 

To meanness he never sank ; 
His morals were perfectly spotless ; 

His honor was bright as the sun ; 
He climbed to the top of the ladder. 

Although at the foot he begun. 
He was placed at the head of the nation ; 

He was honored in every way ; 
He was looked upon by the people 

As the gr^'atest man of his day. 
He was shot by a cruel assassin. 

There were millions of hearts that bled 
When the sad, sad news was made known to the world : 

James Abram Garfield is dead. 



'Arthur Wilkinson Brick, aged 14 years. Died suddenly of diphtheria, Jan. 16, 1882. He 
was the son of Riley A. Brick, Esq., of New York City. 



160 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

ENTERED INTO REST. 

BY SARAH K. BOLTON. 

[From The Independent.] 
Soldier, statesman, scholar, friend, 

Brother to the lowliest one, 
Life has come to sudden end. 

But its work is grandly done. 
Toil and cares of state are o'er ; 
Pain and struggle come no more. 
Rest thee by Lake Erie. 

Nations weep about thy bier, 
Flowers are sent by queenly hands ; 

Bring the poor their homage here, 
Come the great from many lands. 

Be thy grave our Mecca, hence, 

With its speechless eloquence ; 
Rest thee by Lake Eric. 

Winter snows will wrap thy mound, 
Spring will send its wealth of bloom, 

S.ummer kiss the velvet ground. 
Autumn leaves lie on thy tomb : 

Home beside this inland sea, 

Where thou lov'dst in life to be ; 
Rest thee by Lake Erie. 

Strong for right, in danger brave. 
Tender as with woman's heart, 

Champion of the fettered slave, 
Of the people's life a part. 

To be loved is highest fame. 

Garfield, an immortal name ! 

Rest thee by Lake Erie. 

All thy gifted words shall be 

Treasured speech from age to age. 

Thy heroic loyalty 
Be a country's heritage. 

Mentor and thy precious ties 

Sacred in the nation's eyes. 

Rest thee by Lake Erie. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 



161 



From thy life and death shall come 

An ennobled, purer race, 
Honoring labor, wife, and home. 

More of cheer and Christian grace. 
Kindest, truest, till that day 
When He rolls the stone away. 
Rest thee by Lake Erie. 



London, England. 



OUR MARTYR PRESIDENT. 



BY REV. N. VANSANT. 



The nation's hero, hail ! 
The nation's bitter wail 

Rends the blue sky ! 
Shot by a dastard hand. 
The surging, seething land 
Mutters in high demand, 

" The wretch shall die ! " 

The nation's patient, hail ! 
Laid low, a victim pale 

Of murd'rous art ; 
Alternate hope and fear, 
Alternate smile and tear, 
Disclose in tokens dear 

The nation's heart. 

Still the meek sufferer, hail ! 
Must human means all fail. 

Healing to give ? 
'■' Alas ! " the hushed winds sigh, 
" Alas ! " sad millions cry. 
Contrast of Faith's reply, 

"He yet shall live! " 



The nation's victor, hail ! 
Men still with God prevail, 

Princes in power ; 
Brave will that death defied ! 
Brave wife breasting the tide ! 
Bold prayer turning aside 

The fatal hour ! 

Prido of the nations, hail ! 
All hearts the tragic tale 

Moves e'en as one ; 
Rulers and peoples grieve, 
Kings, queens, their tributes give. 
All join the cr3', "Long live 

Columbia's son! " 

Our honored chieftain, hail ! 
Ascending high the scale 

Of earthly fame ; 
The laud with joy ablaze. 
Millions their pieans raise ! 
To God be all the praise, 

In Jesus' name ! 



The new-crowned martyr, hail! 
Death's deep and shadowy vale 

Is safely passed ; 
The end delayed so long. 
But made the nation strong. 
And heightens glory's song 

In lieaven at last ! 
West New Briouton, 8. 1., Sept. 21, 1881. 



1()2 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

IN MEMORIAM — J. A. G. 

BY LUCY M. CREEMER. 

[From The New Haven Register.] 
Consigned to earth ; the last sad rite is o'er ; 

The solemn bells at length have ceased to toll ; 
The stricken nation sits with bended head, 
For, still reverberating through its soul, 
Are mournful echoes of the bells' sad chime, 
And only can the healing hand of Time 
Reach down to comfort us. 

That great, calm soul has found the Infinite ; 

The brave, true heart, that only sought His will 
And all the nation's good, shall throb no more ; 

Its worl»is done. The finite hand is still. 
But is he dead ; he whom the nation weeps? 
Be still, and watch, ye sufferers, he but sleeps ; 
Time's hand shall comfort us. 

For he has left, as priceless legacy, 

A spotless fame, a tender love and pure ; 

A deep devotion to a noble cause. 
Undying faith that Right shall still endure ; 

And after patience, hope and courage lie 

Bereft of strength and only wa,it to die. 
Knows Time shall comfort us. 

Oh, from those heights beyond our ken, 

To which thine eagle soul hath flown. 
Canst thou look back to haunts of men. 

And know us as we would be known? 
Then shalt thou see how deep our love 

For thee, and all thy heart loved best ; 
Our earnest lives would gladly prove 

The nation honors thy bequest. 

From the dim future comes a potent voice : 
The nation shall not cry to God in vain ; 
He did not die who seemed to sleep, in death, 

I called him, and he came, that he might reign 
In grander state ; the little pomp below 
"Was not for such as he, " 'tis empty show " — 
Time's hand shall comfort thee ! " 
PiTTSFiKLD, Mass., Sept. 27, 1881. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 163 

THAT NIGHT. 

BY WILLIA5I T. HORNADAY. 
[From The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.] 
It was in the midnight stillness, 
While the land in slumber lay, 
That the King of Shadows conquered, 

And a great soul passed away. 
Then the searchers after comets 

Saw a meteor afar, 
Flash from Elberon to heaven. 

And become a blazing star. 
Soon the death-knell broke the silence — 

Ne'er so sad save once before — 
And the still air throbbed and quivered 

With the message that it bore. 
Soon was heard o'er all the nation 
This slow-tolling midnight knell, 
And upon a nation's millions 

Deeper 2;loom than midnight fell. 
Every bell from every steeple 

Told its grief with iron tongue, 
Till the weird and dreadful jangle 

Found no heart with grief unwrung. 
"Garfield's dead ! " The nation, waking. 

Hears the news with aching heart. 
And the nations 'cross the ocean 

In our mourning bear a part. 
"He is dead! " With godlike patience, 

With no murmur at his fate. 
With the courage of a hero, 

In his nianhood grand and great, — 
He has gone from earthly anguish. 

Where assassins cannot quest, 
Wiiere we know our noble Lincoln 

Welcomes him to heaven's rest. 
He is gone; his life has left us 

With its lessons great and good ; 
But the memory remaineth 

Where the bright example stood; 
And that star which to the heavens 

Shot from earth that dismal night. 
O'er a world made purer, better, 
Evermore shall shed its light. ■ •- ' 



164 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

THE SUMMONS. 

BY J. G. DE STYAK. 

[From The San Francisco Evening Call.] 
From the region of light beyond the chiuil 
The voice of God's angel cries aloud : 
Else, warrior, cast off the thrall of clay, 
For thee is dawning a brighter day. 
" Courage, brave Captain, do not fear; 
Thy great Commander needs thee here ! " 
He buckled his armor for the fray, 
Like a gallant soldier, and passed away. 
The sword of man to polluting rust ; 
The hand that wielded it gone to dust. 
. The soldier of man lies 'neath the sod, 
The spirit's enrolled in the army of God. 

Leave we the soldier to his rest 

And turn to the nation, woe-opprest; 

Who can measure the awful grief 

Of Freedom's children for their chief ? 

It is not alone the wife who cries, 

Not only the orphan's wails arise. 

Nor the aged mother, with accent wild, 

Asks, " Who has murdered my darling child?" 

But every heart in this broad land 

Felt the cruel stab of the murd'rous hand ; 

All the winds that blow o'er the rolling main 

Bring on their wings a cry of pain. 

Oh. Fate seems hard in its dread decrees — 

As relentless to man as the cruel seas ! 

Oh, why should the gallant ship be lost, 

And the commonest raft not tempest-tost? 

O ravenous grave, are the great and good 
The only ones thou wilt take for food? 
For thee must our choicest fruits be ta'cii 
And the finest of all our flock be slain? 
We bitterly cry to Thee, 'neath the rod — 
Why should this come to us, O our God? 
Shall the worthless live, while the true and bravo 
Moulder to dust in the silent grave? 
Skpt. 20, 1881. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 165 

GOD SPEED THE TRAIN. 

BY CHARLES J. BEATTIE. 

[From The Chicago Tribune.] 

God speed the train ! A People'.s hope ; 

And the Nation hekl its breath 
As the President sped in liis lifeward inarch 
Away from the realms of Death — 
Away from tlie torrid lea, 
Away from the swamp 
And the chill death-damp, 
To sunshine by the sea. 

God speed the train ! Oh, save him now ! 

For his safety a Nation'.s prayer 
Is whispering forth, from South to North, 
Faith's incense on the air 

For voyage safe and free — 
Sweet hope and tiiith. 
That call from death 

To life by the gladd'ning sea. 

God speed the train ! A People's prayer 

From every heart and tongue. 

From city-street, from prairie-farm, 

Through all our country rung. 

To save from Death's decree — 
From East to West, 
One grand behest. 

Safe to the soothing sea. 

God speed the train ! In solemn church, 

In home, in shop, in store. 
With suppliant hearts, on bended knees, 
* Our people all implore. 

In universal plea, 
A Nation's agony of grief, 
Jehovah, save our wounded Cliief, 
Beside the balmy sea. 

Chicago, Sept. 7, 1881. 



166 THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 

TO AMERICA. SEPTEMBEE 19, 1881. 

BY HAROLD BOUGHTON. 

[From Century (Scribner's) Magazine.] 



Now the hard fight is done, 

Manfully striven, 
And the strong life is gone. 

Asked for of Heaven : 
Droop all your banners low, 
Toll the bed sad and slow, 



One tliere is more than all 
Bids you liave patience, — 

Sends at your sorrow's call 
Sad salutations, 

Comforts your grievous need 

First-born of England's seed. 



All that your grief can show England by fate decreed 

Let it be given. ' Mother of nations. 

So to the little isle 

Fragrant of heather. 
Where the sweet roses smile 

Mid the wild weather. 
Stretch out a constant hand. 
Linking, by God's command. 
Daughter and motherland 

Closer together. 
OxFORB, England. 



EMBALMED. 



BY JOHN OWEN. 
[From The Boston Transcript.] 

Suffice the dead to let in state remain, 
The gaze of every curious, careless eye. 
His life, by far more subtile alchemy 

Embalmed, shall in our silent hearts retain 

Its tranquil place, in whitest vesture lain. 
Till gentle Nature bid our bodies lie 
In darkness of the grave's cai)tivity. 

Waiting immortal freedom to attain. 

O brave and patient spirit ! whom we mourn 
Not as the craven who refuses to hope. 
Failing with Timcs's deep mysteries to cope ; 

We trust that thou, from earthly triumphs torn, 

Shalt have another and more glorious morn 
When God's eternal gates to thee will ope. 
Cambridge. 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO GARFIELD. 167 



TWO SONNETS. 



BY LODIS DYER. 



Yet stands erect the memory of his life, 

Though hateful death has foiled its brealliing form, 
Not him, but precious still, because when warm 

With all his quickening ardor, through the strife 

Of fiercest war, — when in the land was rife 
The tumult of wild grief, — it braved the storm 
And kept him safe from evils threatening swarm. 

Oh, piteous fate, that drove the envenomed knife 

Of jaundiced envy through a miscreant's heart, 
When peace had led a righteous man to power. 

Oh, piteous fate, that lent a new-found art 

And nerved a craven fool with strengt]i to cower 
Behind him, prompting, when the accursed hour 

For murder came, a devil in his part. 



II. 

Be comforted, sad lady, if comfort be — 

When life has lost all light, when hope is dead, 
When death has found thy life and joy has fled 

Affrighted from the woe encircling thee— 

In weeping eyes which thou shall never see. 
In aching hearts that now are filled with dread, 
O'er which, till now, no chilling grief had spread. 

In woeful concord enmities agree ; 

To mourn with thee the struggling world stands still, 

And commerce even forgets she has no heart. 
The assassin's hand had fatal power to kill 

A nation's hope, but not its love. The art 

Of pitying Heaven new-shapes this hideous ill, 

And stirs all human-kind to take thy part. 

Cambridge, Sept. 23, 1881. 



168 



THE POETS' TRIBUTES TO. GARFIELD. 



GAREIELD AND LINCOLN. 

BY A. BRONSON ALCOTT. 

[From The Springfield Republican.] 

Among the orations and poems of yesterday, or those others which the death of Garfield 
has called forth, few ran be more remarkable than the ode written by Mr. Alcott, of Concord, 
and read at the memorial meeting held in that town yesterday. He appropriately recalls in 
his title the auspicious custom of the Roman augurs, — than whom none were more venerable 
or prophetic than he, — when taking the omens for the prosperity of the jjeople of Rome, in 
some great national crisis, after sacrifice had been rightly performed. Our national sacrifice 
has been duly made once more, as in the death of Lincolu, — not by our own act, but in the 
mystery of the Divine Powers themselves, who best know how to choose an unblemished 
victim, and when the costly rite must be celebrated. Yet from these sad oflerings the seer 
draws salutary omens, as he examines the records of the sacrifice, and points the lesson of 
that devoted life. 



CARMEN" AUGURATUM AUSPICAKS. 



A^ Prophetic Ode after Sacrifice. 



O THOU, ray country, ope thine eyes 
Toward what the Future holds for thee. 

See the brave stripling' rise 

From lowliest hut and poverty, 
From stair to stair ; 
Nor liardly fix his footsteps there, 

Ere he another round 

Doth upward bound; 
Still, step by step, to higher stair 

Forward he leaps, 
Broader his vision sweeps, 
Till he the loftiest summit gain 
A people's hope to further and maintain. 



But lo ! as oft befalls the great, 

The wise and good, 
There for a moment poised he stood, — 
Then passed beyond the gazing crowd 
Within the folded cloud. 
Wasted by weary pains 
His pale remains 



Now lie in state, 
Swathed in his bloody shroud ; 
Peoples and kingdoms bathed in tears : 
Hear'st thou the welcome greet his ears, 
As he his holier throne doth take ? 
This Brave of fifty manly years, 
Dies he not now for thy dear sake ? 



Oil, follow then his leading far, 
Be thou thyself the morning star, 
Beaming thy glories round the world, 
His name emblazoned on thy flag un- 
furled! 
What speak the myriad bells, 
Tolling this day their mournful knells ? 
" Ne'er may our weight be swung. 
Never our iron tongue 
Slavery's base might extol 
In town or capitol ; 
But o'er a people brave and free, 
Ring out in happier symphony 
Garfield and Liberty ! " 



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